


Unearthed

by Cinis



Series: on exequies for the living [2]
Category: League of Legends
Genre: F/F, You're Welcome, another multichapter crosspost, but i'm posting it here all at once, even though it's not done yet lol, this story has been going for literally two years
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2016-11-30
Packaged: 2018-08-22 04:52:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 31,938
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8273612
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cinis/pseuds/Cinis
Summary: In the army, there was a name for it. For remembering and then getting stuck. For seeing ghosts. For smelling blood and fire and choking on ash when the air was clean. For blindness that took men and left them a quarter mile from where they'd been with no knowledge of how they'd arrived there.
The name of it was whispered among recruits. Old soldiers, soldiers like Riven, never gave voice to it. If you named it, it would come. And if you admitted to it… that was weakness.
She wasn't going to name it. Not for Katarina.
[Sequel to Burials in which Riven comes home. They were originally posted as a single continuous fic on fanfiction.net and, while Unearthed can be read separately, it is advised that you read Burials first]





	1. Chapter 1

Years.

It'd been years since Riven crossed the salt-soaked timber of the gangway, leaving Noxus behind for what she'd believed would be a single season of campaign. She'd carried her runesword wrapped in oiled cloth across her shoulder and beneath its weight and hers, the plank she'd trod had moaned.

It had held though. It had held her, it had held every man of her company, every soul who'd followed her. And when they'd all boarded, the crew of the frigate dragged it up and stowed it safe.

Like everything else created by Noxus, it had been strong enough to do its work.

There'd been no dock at their destination. The Noxian fleet came near the shore and dropped anchor there. The soldiers clambered into shallow vessels and rowed the rest of the way to the beach, leaping out into the water where the breakers met land as the boats turned back to ferry comrades, wave after wave after wave.

Now, when Riven disembarked, she crossed another gangway, onto a pier, solid beneath her feet – so different from the deck she'd become used to after a week at sea.

She wasn't a commander leading men, she wasn't a soldier headed to war.

She was -

Around her, other men, other men who'd fought and fled, poured off the ship. Some ran headlong towards family or friends, men and women unseen since the beginning of the disastrous Ionian campaign. Some stumbled here and there, drunk on the sights and sounds and smells of home.

Darkwill is dead, the messengers had said. Jericho Swain now leads. He pardons all the Ionian deserters – the true Noxians who refused to follow Zaunite weakness. Come back. Come home. Darkwill's weakness has been purged from High Command and Noxus has need of her sons.

The news had spread across half the world and they'd gathered, the cowards who gave up their home in exchange for their lives, and they'd returned.

Years.

It had been so many lonely, longing, years. Years spent dreaming of a city forever lost, the twists and turns of alleys buried under freshly fallen snow. Years spent stumbling through a strange language while still thinking thoughts in a native tongue. Years spent looking out to the horizon, measuring the distance.

And now -

The dock smelled of brine, but beneath the stench of salt Riven caught a whiff of steaming pork sausages and fresh-baked bread rolls, the traditional street fare of Noxus. Nowhere else in the world, at least not that she'd traveled, offered the same. Her mouth watered.

It took little effort to find the food cart by the end of the pier, a rickety wooden thing painted a bright, eye-catching, red. A line extended out from it, ever growing, as more and more men queued up, eager to exchange a few coins for that taste of home.

Riven was halfway to the end of the line before she stopped still in her tracks.

She had some money, but not enough for any sort of luxury. She'd spent almost everything on passage home and now she had nothing but a few brass pennies and the broken sword at her side.

Since fleeing from Ionia, she'd made her way as a sell-sword in Bilgewater, working for pirate hunters and those many men who merely wanted to be left alone. It had paid, but not well enough to leave her with much after food and more drink than she rightly needed. There was scant other work for a former soldier, though. Her only trade was violence. Dockhands made even less coin and Riven had too much left of her pride to consider the other 'options.'

The duties of a mercenary had been similar, but the life had been nothing like what she'd become accustomed to while serving Noxus. Bilgewater was chaos. Employers came and went faster than the tides and they could be counted on only for their coin, and sometimes not even that. Comrades were as likely to slit your throat as they were to guard your back in a fight. But that wasn't so strange. It was Noxus, after all, that had taught Riven the bitter taste of betrayal.

The Noxian army – the army, once, had taken care of its own. Rations had not always been good, but they had been steady. The barracks guaranteed a roof over her head. Uniforms made dressing each day simple. She'd followed orders and life had been straightforward, easy to predict.

Obey and be strong.

The strong will survive.

Anger quickened her breathing and pulled her expression into a tight frown.

Rare now were the moments her mood wasn't touched by anger.

Swain said that the army would again fulfill its duty to its soldiers.

Jericho Swain was the most successful general in Noxus' recent history. After too many years of failure by so many other commanders, he'd swept into the north and won the campaign there in a single season. He was well respected by his men, and by his enemies. He'd claimed the title of Grand General by defeating Keiran Darkwill in a duel, proving his strength, just as Noxian tradition demanded.

By his order, Riven and the rest were allowed to return to Noxus.

Desertion was treason and Boram Darkwill would have had them all executed if they'd tried to cross the border. Such had always been the law. Nor did Riven delude herself. Many of the men with her on the dock were weak. They had fled before battle began, never so much as boarding the fated frigates, and returned only because in the intervening years they'd found they missed their civilian world, played out in the streets of Noxus instead of in her army. Cowards all, they would slip away from the dock and into anonymity and shame.

But for the others, the men who'd realized Noxus had built them up, left them fit for nothing but war and death - Swain said there was a place in the army once more for them all.

If anyone else were to make that claim, Riven would have been in Bilgewater still, living what she could of her life between contracts.

But Swain?

Slow, Riven turned away from the food cart and its line and towards the black-clad officers at the end of the pier.

She had no coin and there were debts to be paid.

The barracks left empty by Darkwill's repeated disasters were opened to the former soldiers who'd returned with only the clothes on their backs. Scowling clerks handed out plain uniforms to replace threadbare rags, organized them into squads and companies, distributed meal tokens, muttered about Noxus' overly warm welcome to deserters.

Instead of a room, Riven was assigned a bunk on the main floor.

She didn't complain.

She'd grown up in a bunk – first in the workhouse, then at the training grounds, then with her company.

Only officers had rooms and she wasn't an officer – not anymore.

That right, the right she'd bought with sweat and blood and years, so much of her life, was lost.

It had been taken from her.

She was starting over.

"How old are you?" the recruiter had asked, a lifetime ago. He'd been an older officer, too old to have a purpose anymore, standing on a street corner in the slums. All around them, the shanty town that ringed Noxus rose up, towering several stories and casting everything into shadow.

She'd clenched her fists, drawn herself up as best she could, underfed, gaunt, and answered, "Old enough."

The recruiter had been tired, he'd had a quota, she'd been one more tally for his log.

Her first barracks had looked as the one she'd been assigned this time did. Noxian barracks deviated little from the standard. A hundred bunks, all bolted to the floor, all in a single room, a heavy wood trunk at the foot of each bunk. Amber hextech lamps strung over the walkways between bunks that dimmed at the fifth watch. A door at one end of the hall, leading to the officer's quarters. A door at the other end of the hall, leading to the privy.

She'd been wrong. She hadn't been old enough.

She'd lagged behind the other recruits, bigger boys on the cusp of adulthood, more than half coming from citizen families, raised to serve and to fight.

But she'd made herself old enough, strong enough.

She'd worked harder than the rest, stayed up late moving through drills, again and again and again while her comrades laughed and drank and dreamed.

And when deployment came, she lived and they died.

Such was Noxus.

She'd found new comrades after that. Men who had seen war, survived it, and returned for more.

These men lived longer.

But they didn't live forever.

"Don't make friends with the dead," her captain had told her.

It was good advice to hear, easier still to give, impossible to follow.

The strong survive, but all men die.

As she continued to live and her comrades continued to fail, she rose. First she won citizenship, then commission, then, when her captain, the one man she'd trusted never to fall, fell, promotion, then, finally, command.

The path behind her had not been easy, the road ahead had not been easy, but the road ahead had tilted upwards and, like those boys alongside whom she'd first learned to fight, she'd dreamed. She'd won her place and it seemed she might continue to rise ever higher.

It had been a good dream.

Then Ionia.

Then Zaun.

Then.

Couer.

A valley filled with the graves of the men she hadn't been strong enough to save.

All her life, she'd only ever been strong enough to save herself.

In the barracks, surrounded by the restless shifting, snoring, and quiet weeping of her fellows, Riven slept poorly.

Her back was a mass of thick scar tissue, a poorly healed memento of acid burning through skin and muscle as she cowered in a ditch, muddy with blood, praying to gods she'd never believed in, whose names she couldn't remember, for the nightmare to end.

When she drifted too far from consciousness, her body ached.

Had she hoped coming home would ease that ache? She couldn't remember.

But why else would she have come back?

Morning muster was an easy habit, even after so much time away.

With all the others, Riven stood at attention in the barracks yard and was counted. On command, every man turned and fell into line seamlessly to march to the mess hall. It took more than desertion to break a lifetime of military discipline.

Breakfast was hardtack and salted beef.

Noxian army rations were tough to chew and, day in and day out for years, flavorless, but they were more than sufficient for survival.

Life quickly fell into a routine for Riven, like nothing she'd had in her years working in the eternal chaos of Bilgewater.

It was not an easy routine.

The commanders of the companies formed of once-deserters trusted in neither the courage nor the strength of their men. The drills they ordered were grueling, even to Riven who hadn't laid down her weapon in all the time she'd been away. Some men could barely drag themselves back to bed by the end of each day.

The one consolation was that deep exhaustion eased her sleep.

But exhaustion did little to temper discontent.

The commanders did not trust their men and, in return, the men trusted little in their commanders.

Nor did they trust Noxus.

Fury Company had not been alone in Ionia.

But still, they stayed. If they'd had anywhere else to go, they would never have re-enlisted.

For her part, Riven kept to herself. She knew nothing of her fellows except that they had fled the fields they'd marched to. Likely, that was all they knew of her. The easy comradery she'd shared with every company she'd served with in the past was nowhere in this new group of men. Would these men guard her flank in battle? Would these charge with her when the order was given?

It was a familiar fear. Bilgewater sells swords were notoriously unreliable. But she'd thought to leave the ever-gnawing doubt behind her when she crossed the gangway from free-nation ship to Noxian pier.

Soon though, it seemed, she'd have her answers.

In two months' time, enough time for the physical demands of the army to again become as simple as breathing, orders came. Deployment.

Swain was a strategic genius, but even he couldn't save the Demacian front with only the skeletal remains of the Noxian army, worn down to nothing after fighting three simultaneous wars. Too much had been lost trying to salvage the doomed Ionian campaign.

Perhaps Swain had welcomed the wayward sons of Noxus home as a gesture against Darkwills' follies.

Perhaps.

He had certainly done it to bolster the failing war in the west.

What rumblings there'd been among the men redoubled. They'd trusted Swain enough to take his clemency. They'd trusted Swain enough to take oaths again for Noxus. Did they trust Swain enough to die in a losing war? Did they trust Swain enough to win? Did they love Noxus enough?

And, still, most stayed. And they did what their commanders could not force them to. They prepared their minds again for war.

One by one the days counted down.

There was a part of Riven that burned with eager anticipation.

The Demacian front was where she'd learned to fight and to live. It was where the Noxian armies belonged – not in the north, not across the seas. Whatever else, it was right that Noxian soldiers hold the western border. When she'd been a green among other recruits all those years ago, it was in the west that they'd all dreamed of strength and glory.

Did her comrades now remember those dreams as well? Was that why they too stayed?

Too soon and too slowly, the final day before the march arrived.

Riven woke at sunrise with the rest of her company. They stood their muster, they marched to the mess hall.

Across everything lay a blanket of tension, a constant buzzing nervousness.

Riven was barely half done with her meal when someone behind her shouted, "Commander Riven?"

On edge already, she startled and tried to turn towards the voice. Sandwiched between two other soldiers on a bench at the mess table, she had to twist and crane her neck to see who it was.

The young man behind her wore the distinctive brown uniform of a runner, a soldier whose duties were to deliver the messages of his superiors. In the field, as they moved between companies and through enemy territory alone, they were respected and treated with something akin to awe. This man, however, was not a field runner. His uniform was too crisp, too clean, his face too soft to have ever seen war. His superiors were the officers who lived high up on the mountain and his kind were rarely seen among the barracks, much less in the mess.

On all sides, the soldiers around Riven had gone stiff and turned towards her. Displeased by the sudden attention and her own surprise at being addressed, she scowled at the boy.

As well-groomed as he was, he could only have come from High Command. What would High Command want of her?

Was the runner there to demand the return of her sword?

Riven's stomach, half-full of hardtack, twisted.

The sword, though it was as broken as the city that had forged it, hardly a weapon at all, once bright runes now so obscured by the corrosion of Zaun that they could hardly be seen, was all she had. But it was also the badge of a rank and an honor she'd given up.

If High Command demanded its return, what right did she have to refuse?

Riven's ever-simmering anger flared.

The right of blood. It was hers. It was hers, and, as she had in the past, she would kill to keep it.

Beneath Riven's intensifying scowl, the runner shifted nervously. He was untried and he was spineless as well. "Sir, General Darius orders you to report to him immediately."

Riven blinked. Her brow furrowed. Confusion replaced anger in the space of a heartbeat. "Darius?"

"Yes sir," the runner answered. "I am ordered to escort you to him. Immediately."

Darius.

Darius was the man who'd made Riven's dreams seem possible, years ago. He was the man who'd vouched for her strength and her ability to lead. He was the man who'd trusted her and had faith in her.

The man she'd failed.

How did he know that she'd returned? Was he watching the rolls so closely? Had her quiet homecoming meant so much to those in power that they noticed?

Why now?

Numbly, Riven extracted herself from the mess bench. The eyes of every soldier in the mess weighed heavy on her back as she followed the runner out into the crisp morning.

Whatever dread she'd felt at the prospect of High Command's attention was dwarfed by what she felt knowing that Darius had not forgotten her.

Though she hadn't left the military district since her return, the way to the summit of the mountain was familiar to her.

Soft though he was, the runner set a good pace going up towards the citadel of Noxus and they arrived at the gates of High Command long before midday. The short journey was still far too much time for Riven to dwell in anxiety. By the time they were walking through the gilt halls of the seat of the city, frayed nerves, nerves that stayed calm in the midst of pitched battles, had drowned out any real thought.

The runner took them far up into High Command, far higher than Darius' office had been when last she saw him. The dark wooden door they finally stopped before was decorated with a silvered emblem of Noxus.

From the other side of the closed door came the sounds of muffled shouting.

The runner reached out and knocked sharply.

The shouting quieted.

A voice. Darius' voice. Older. Terse. "Come in."

The runner nodded to Riven and slipped away down the hall.

Riven raised her hand. It wasn't shaking. Good. She grasped the door handle and opened the door.

Darius sat behind a desk. His younger brother, Draven, was draped over a chair in front of the desk.

Both men stared at Riven.

Riven stared back. She swallowed. "Sir."

Darius' face had always been dark from sun and weathered from a lifetime of long campaigns, but now it was tired. A stripe of gray ran through his black hair above his brow. His great axe, as large as he was, lay at rest, propped up against the far wall. The shine of polish on its blade was bright. It was well cared for and rarely used.

"Riven," Darius rumbled. It was a greeting, short, efficient, devoid of any cues to his mood or his purpose in calling her there. He was a soldier, first and foremost, and he'd never been one for small talk or pleasantries.

Draven, however, possessed not a shred of his brother's restraint. Surprise colored his voice. "Riven! You're alive!"

Though he was still smaller than Darius, Draven had put on a significant amount of muscle in the years since she'd last seen him. Ever true to himself, his outfit was an ostentatious mix of Noxian and Zaunite fashion that defied description. It looked like it may have been meant to recall armor of some sort, but, made with large cutouts to showcase his tattoos, it could offer nothing in the way of real protection. His long hair was pushed back and kept out of his face by a dark yellow headband decorated with, of all things, a print featuring a mustache much like Draven's own.

More important than his clothes was Draven's smile. He was smiling. That was a good sign. If Draven was smiling to see her, Darius was likely of a similar mind.

Riven cleared her throat. "Draven," she greeted.

Draven's smile morphed to a smirk. "Not Draven. Draven."

Riven couldn't hear the difference. She nodded at him anyway. She had never disliked Draven, but his ego made it hard to be fond of him. On Darius' advice, she'd always done her best to ignore his grandstanding and to proceed as if he weren't attempting to draw attention to himself.

Draven pointed at his strange headband. "Draven is a celebrity now. Got huge crowds, got adoring fans, got an autograph that-

"That's enough, Draven," Darius said. Behind his desk, he stood. Unlike his brother, he was dressed in a manner appropriate to High Command. His uniform, black with a trim of red and accents of gold, was the formal uniform of a general. The rank insignia on the collar of the jacket, three tiny golden Noxian emblems on each side, spoke his position as well. As a lieutenant general, years ago, he'd had only one to a side. "Commander," he said, addressing Riven, "It's good to see you well."

Riven had nothing to say to that, and so she said nothing.

Darius gestured to the seat Draven occupied. "Sit." He glanced at his brother. "You can go now."

Draven looked taken aback. "But what about-

Darius sat back down behind his desk. "My answer is no. Now, some of us have actual work to do. Leave."

Draven shrugged as he attempted not to look too put out while slinking out of the room. "Whatever, bro." Without prompting, he closed the door behind him.

As ordered, Riven took the now vacated seat in front of Darius' desk. Draven's antics had provided a brief distraction, but he was gone now and they were alone in the office.

A part of her wished to be small, small enough to hide.

Such a desire was not befitting of a Noxian.

She squared her shoulders, straightened her back, and waited to be addressed.

Darius leafed through a sheaf of papers left on the corner of his desk until he found what he was looking for. He slid it towards Riven.

Riven's lips pressed into a tight line and her brow furrowed.

She hadn't seriously attempted to read anything since before Couer.

The dark letters on the paper swam, unwilling to stay in place.

"It's a commission," Darius rumbled, never one to waste time. "I'm re-forming the Crimson Elite. I need a commander, someone able to assemble a company, command them, and command the respect of the children who call themselves High Command. You did that once for Fury Company. I need you to do it again."

Riven looked up from the paper. The Crimson Elite were the citadel guard, handpicked from the best soldiers from every quarter of Noxus and, though often kept far from the front lines of the battlefields, soaked in as much blood as any other division – more, even. Or, they had been. Long before she'd been born, Darkwill had disbanded them.

She frowned as she tried to choose which of the myriad questions swimming in her head she wanted to ask. It was not proper to question a superior, not his motivation, not his judgement. But still the questions bubbled up in her.

"You're hesitating," Darius said. His tone was sharp now.

There was no use in denying it. Riven nodded once.

"You came home, Riven," Darius said. "After what happened at Couer. After you survived." Darius leaned back in his chair, crossed his arms over his chest, stared at Riven like he could bore a hole through her with his grey eyes alone. "But it took you years. Noxus needed you and you ran."

Riven's lips tightened.

"There were never many commanders of your caliber," Darius said. "And now we have even fewer. Will you serve Noxus as your strength allows, or will you go die on the border with the other cowards?"

Riven's hands became fists and the paper she held crumpled. She stood. "I am not a coward."

Darius hardly moved at her challenge. "I don't believe that you are. You came home."

Riven did not take her seat once more. Darius' words had blunted her anger but they hadn't dispelled it.

"So take your commission and do your duty," Darius rumbled. "Prove yourself. Command the Crimson Elite."


	2. Chapter 2

Unlike her first commission, Riven's new command came without ceremony or fanfare. There was no place in Swain's Noxus for needless shows of wealth and power, not when it had a backbone of strength to rely on. Darius gave her the paper, gave her a slate of orders, and that was that.

She left High Command in a daze, unsure what she felt and what she ought to feel.

Certainly, anger still gnawed at her.

Too many times, her courage had been questioned for her actions in Ionia.

In the past, she'd given little weight to whispers. She knew herself. She knew what she had done and why she had done it.

But hearing the same accusation from Darius, no matter that he'd quickly recanted, had cut far deeper than any past accusations hurled at her.

It had made her blood boil.

It had made her doubt herself, and that was unacceptable.

Descending from the summit of Noxus, Riven quickened her pace.

When change came, it came fast. Two months she'd spent idling away, as she and her comrades remembered how to be soldiers. And now, this.

For the night, she was allowed to return to her barracks. There was precious little time left in the day to travel to the foot of the mountain and return as well. But the next day, when the rest of her company began their march towards Demacia, she was to move to new quarters, quarters located in High Command itself.

The Crimson Elite would be housed in its traditional lodging, sealed since their disbandment. As it stood, Riven was the only member. Finding men to fill the ranks was one of the most pressing tasks set to her by Darius. The company – half-company, really – would take orders only from him, or herself, as well. With the three golden insignia fixed to his collar, Darius was second in Noxus only to the Grand General.

Even so, her new command was not a role she was comfortable with. She'd been trained to march mile after mile, to keep formation in the heat of battle, and to survive. Though she'd never been formally trained as an officer, she'd followed the examples set by her past captains and she'd lead as well as any other commander, first to charge, never to falter.

Her place was in the field.

But now Noxus needed her elsewhere.

Swain lead now, but there was much work to be done, still, to repair the damage of Darkwill's reign. Darkwill's loyalists still held some power in the city, still agitated against Swain's command. But the Crimson Elite, Riven's Crimson Elite, would aid the transition. They would support Swain's High Command with their strength as the last vestiges of Darkwill's rot were swept away.

This was Darius' charge.

Years ago, when Riven had still served under her captain, Darius had begun his great purge of the old guard, useless and corrupt aristocrats who preferred the safety of retreat to the glory of victory. He and Swain together had renewed those efforts with the fall of the old Grand General, but many still remained and the two generals were busy men.

Once, she'd looked up to Darius for the swathe he'd cut through High Command's ranks.

As news trickled from the city out to the front lines, Riven and the rest of the soldiers perpetually manning the Demacian border had celebrated. Finally one of their own was setting things right. It was personal, even, because Riven's captain had served with Darius when they'd both been young men.

Who among them hadn't dreamed of being like Darius?

Now, Riven found herself poised to emulate him.

It felt wrong.

Who was she, a former deserter only recently returned, to lead a second cleansing of High Command?

The legend of Darius said that when he saw cowardice in his captain, he took his axe and then he took the man's head. Then, he lead his comrades to victory. When the campaign was won, he marched home to Noxus and continued his cleansing.

When Riven saw the cowardice of Zaun, she fled.

Cowardice for cowardice.

But she wasn't a coward.

She knew herself and she was not a coward.

What was more, Darius was her general. He was an honest man, a soldier at heart. She knew better than to trust, but she trusted him.

If he ordered it, she would obey.

And beneath her swirling doubts, Riven felt fire.  
By virtue of the memory of her strength, she'd been again raised up from the barracks to command, higher, this time, than before. By all rights it had been her lot to spend the rest of her good years as a foot soldier, marching, fighting, dying. Even welcomed back, there was little chance of promotion for the men who'd once been deserters.

Was that what she had returned to Noxus intending to do? To march for the rest of her life?

To do as Darius had suggested she might – to die on the border while the city crumbled?

No. It couldn't have been.

She'd returned answering her need for home, but surely she'd still had her ambitions.

To be strong and to rise was the driving force of every Noxian.

Was she not still a Noxian?

Couer, Darkwill's Noxus, had taken everything she'd worked for, everything she'd earned, but it hadn't taken her dream.

Whatever she'd felt the previous day, whatever dark thoughts she entertained now, she now undeniably was warmed by the sparks of old desire rekindling. If she closed her eyes, perhaps she could pretend that nothing had ever gone wrong, that she'd never gone to Ionia. But – no – before Ionia, she'd lived in a different Noxus, a Noxus willing to bend the knee to Zaun in the name of expedience. This new Noxus, it was better. It was Noxus as Noxus was meant to be.

Because of Swain.

Because of Darius.

Darius was again putting his trust in her. She wouldn't fail him, not this time.

It was good to have direction again.

Riven's footfalls stayed light all the way to her barracks. She passed her comrades in silence. She knew none of them well enough to converse, and they knew too little of her to ask her whereabouts or news.

Her steps only faltered when she arrived at her bunk.

It was as she'd left it, save for the black rose lying on the pillow.

Wary and tense, Riven's eyes flickered across the room. What men were present were occupied with their own business. No one seemed ill at ease. No one seemed out of place. Had anyone seen someone leave the rose on her bunk, surely they'd say something. Even if they didn't speak, their actions would signal their knowledge. They would be anxious, they would be looking in her direction, they would be fidgeting. Not a soul in the room acted out of the ordinary.

Slow, Riven reached down towards the bloom. She recognized it - flower sellers on the streets sometimes had roses, though their roses were always red or pink - but she'd never held a rose, never smelled one. Riven took the rose by the stem, then immediately dropped it with a hiss of pain. Closer inspection revealed thorns. She hadn't known roses had thorns. There was a pinpoint of blood on her finger where she'd been cut, but it was barely a scratch. More careful this time, Riven picked up the flower again.

The scent of the rose was thick and sweet. It wasn't like anything else Riven had smelled before.

Still minding the thorns, she placed it on top of the locker at the foot of her bunk.

Who would leave a rose on her pillow? Forgetting who would do such a thing, who could do such a thing? Excepting musters and drills, the main hall of a barracks was rarely empty and unescorted strangers were unwelcome.

Riven's heart skipped a beat.

Katarina.

In her long years away, Riven's mind had turned to her former lover more than a few times. In self-indulgent flights of fancy, she'd sometimes imagined that Katarina might find her, take her home to Noxus. A woman of Katarina's position certainly would have had that power. Or maybe Riven would dream that a word from the daughter of the General Du Couteau had spared Fury Company from the Melters.

Why waste dreams on small things?

Other times, Riven had wondered how quickly she'd been forgotten.

Her days in exile had stretched on endlessly and torturing herself had become just another way of passing the time.

But most days, Riven hadn't given the woman a single thought.

She assumed that Katarina herself must have had much the same disposition. Less thought, even, for Riven than Riven for her because everyone in Fury Company would have been reported as dead.

What had she been to Katarina, that, dead, she might deserve remembrance?

Friends came and went.

Lovers came and went.

The rose could not have come from Katarina.

Even if she'd cared, she dealt in steel, not in flowers.

No matter how much Riven wished the rose were hers -

Riven shook her head to clear it.

She'd had years to move on. Now, poised to return to her upward path in Noxus, the path she should have never been forced to leave, now was not the time to dwell on a single past lover.

So who left the rose?

Riven frowned.

If she was meant to know, she'd know already. If there were a message for her, it would have been left in such a way that she'd understand it. So someone left the rose to tell her that they, some mysterious they, existed. That was the extent of it.

It wasn't a threat. A threat was meaningless if it wasn't understood.

Even so, Riven slept that night clutching her shattered sword.

The feeling that she being watched haunted her uneasy sleep.

When she woke, the rose was still lying on her trunk.

Riven took her sword, trimmed the thorns away, and took the flower with her, tucking it into her belt when she departed the barracks for her new quarters in High Command.

Regardless of who left the rose and for what reason, she'd never had a rose before.

When she arrived at the gates of High Command, a runner was there waiting for her.

"Commander Riven, I presume," the runner greeted.

It was not at all the proper way to address a superior, but Riven hadn't been a superior officer in years and she was caught off guard by the fact that the runner was a woman. While it wasn't unheard of for a women to walk the halls of High Command or serve in the army, clearly Riven did both, it was rare enough to draw attention.

Unlike the runner of the previous day, this one did not seem soft. She wasn't hard either though. There was something maddeningly indeterminate about her. She wasn't young and she wasn't old. Her hair was dark, but many in Noxus had dark hair. It did not escape Riven's attention that she was quite attractive, but there was also something unsettling about her that made the soldier's skin crawl.

Riven pushed all those thoughts back. Before her stood a runner. In Noxus, function came before form.

"Yes, runner?" Riven replied curtly.

"I'll lead you to your new quarters today," the runner said.

Riven nodded. Her jaw was tight with unease.

As they traveled through the corridors of High Command, the runner didn't speak again.

The rooms reserved for the Crimson Elite were part of the basement level of the compound. Had they been any higher, it was likely they would not have remained in disuse as they had.

Leading the way, the runner came to a halt before a great steel door. If three men stood side by side with their arms extended, that was the width of the door, and it was easily the height of those three men, higher perhaps. In the amber hextech light of the caverns beneath High Command, the metal of the door gleamed. Though the corridor was dark, Riven could make out chisel marks in the stone all around the entryway. The rooms beyond may have lain empty for years, but the door was new.

The hinges of the door showed that it opened not inwards but outwards.

Riven's hand drifted towards the hilt of her broken sword.

The runner raised a glowing hand towards the door.

The runner wasn't a runner.

In an instant, Riven was moving. She kicked out a leg, sweeping the not-runner's legs out from under her while at the same time yanking her sword from its makeshift sheath at her side.

The not-runner caught her fall on her arms and rolled, but Riven was faster. She'd spent her life in the army and then what seemed like a whole second lifetime brawling in Bilgewater bars and on rocking ship's decks. As fast as she'd swept the not-runner's legs, she had a knee planted on the small of the other woman's back, pinning her to the floor, and the jagged edge of her sword resting lightly against the soft place where the not-runner's skull met her spine. Riven used her other hand to grind one of the not-runner's shoulders into the stone floor.

With anyone else, she might have relied more on her body and less on her sword to keep the not-runner down, but she wanted to be able to put as much space between her and the other woman at a moment's notice, if need be.

Short of severing both hands, it was nearly impossible to fully incapacitate a mage. This particular mage hadn't done anything against Riven, yet, and maiming or killing a true messenger of High Command was a treason far less easily pardoned than desertion.

The not-runner chuckled, confident, as if she were still in control of the situation.

Riven said nothing. She pressed her sword down, not enough to cut, but enough to threaten. Actions spoke louder than words. Her meaning was clear enough.

"Don't you want to see your new command?" the not-runner asked. Amusement colored her tone.

Riven fought down the growl building deep in her throat. "Who are you?"

If the not-runner was at all perturbed by her situation, she didn't show it. "My friends call me Evaine."

And what did the rest call her?

It was clear that no matter how hard Riven pressed, she'd gain nothing from continuing that line of questioning. Did she even trust she'd been given a real name? No. Anger made Riven tighten her grip on her sword, twisting the blade ever so slightly, biting into the not-runner's neck. Despite being the one holding the weapon, Riven was losing control of the situation, if ever she'd had any control at all. She squeezed the fingers of her other hand, digging them as deeply and painfully as she could into the not-runner's shoulder. "Why are you here?" she demanded.

The not-runner's voice betrayed not a hint of discomfort. "I'm here to open your door for you," she said.

Riven grunted but didn't let the not-runner up.

The not-runner scoffed. "No wonder Darius carries such fondness for you. You're just like him. Very strong and not very bright."

Already angry, now Riven's blood boiled. She wasn't smart, not like so many other officers, not like the nobles and merchants with their books and numbers and number books. But she was smart enough to do whatever she needed to do, and she was more than strong enough to make up for any other failings.

In Riven's brief moment of distraction, the not-runner beneath her flickered, staying solid for a moment, then becoming as air. Riven dropped through her. Her knee, previously braced on the not-runner's back, slammed into the floor, as did her sword.

The not-runner now stood once more before the great steel door. She passed her hand over the surface, drawing symbols in the air, leaving a pale purple mist in her wake.

Even if Riven could succeed in again pinning the not-runner, she couldn't see anything productive coming from it. She settled for standing back up and edging away from the other woman.

Mages.

With a final flourish, the not-runner stepped back from the door. The purple mist dissipated. "There," the not-runner said. "I've removed my seal."

Still lacking a reason to trust the other woman, Riven gestured with her sword. "Open it."

Copying Riven's gesture with her hand, the not-runner replied, "It's your door, commander."

Riven's nostrils flared, her anger not forgotten. "You said you're here to open it. Open it."

The not-runner smiled smugly. "So I did," she said. Her fingers curled slightly, the purple mist gathering once more.

Maddeningly slow, the door swung open.

Beyond the door lay a great and dark cavern – not unsurprising given the rest of the basement levels of High Command. The darkness was lessened by soft hextech bulbs glowing at regular intervals all along the walls.

As best Riven could tell, the cavern served as a great hall with a multitude of rooms branching off from it. It was a barracks, but like not barracks Riven had ever seen. Every soldier, it seemed, would be accorded their own room. Curiosity leached away her anger, but, still mindful of the way the hinges had faced, she didn't cross the threshold.

If nothing else, her time in Bilgewater had taught her caution.

At the farthest end of the hall was a dim red light.

Riven squinted.

The light was growing brighter and larger – it was coming closer.

Beneath her feet, the ground trembled.

Riven glanced over at the not-runner.

The not-runner was gone.

She looked back towards the red light, but it was gone, not in the distance, it was on top of her almost, giant, hulking, a grey monster, an axe coming down -

Riven raised her sword just in time to stop the axe from splitting her in two.

The shock of the impact rattled her teeth, made her knees scream in pain. Her arms collapsed and the flat of her own blade slammed into her forehead, knocking her back and to the ground.

Darkness ate at the edges of her vision and the world swam.

Stumbling away from the red light, Riven threw up her sword again, against the blur of motion she thought she saw – and indeed it had been the axe, again trying to cleave her.

She was lucky, this time.

Her desperate attempt to block the incoming blow caught the perfect angle and the force of the axe didn't knock her from her feet once more.

Somewhat recovered now from the monster's first strike, Riven darted forward.

The thing was huge, almost as large as the corridor itself, and its axe was similarly sized.

She didn't pause to consider what may have become of her if the thing had had room enough for a full swing.

Adrenaline gave her the disregard for safety that she needed to throw herself to the floor, letting her left shoulder take the full brunt of impact as she slid beneath the creature, through its legs, to emerge behind it. Standing again, Riven snarled. Her shoulder screamed. A quick flex of her fingers showed it was still working though. Good.

She took half a step back and then she was running forward, jumping up.

With her left hand, she caught onto one of the spikes protruding from the monster's pauldron and then she used her momentum to swing herself up, high enough to plunge her broken sword into the base of the thing's neck, right in the hollow of its right shoulder, above the collarbone.

If it had had two pauldrons instead of the one, the maneuver wouldn't have worked.

Instead of falling like a living, feeling, thing might have, the monster laughed.

It wasn't a laugh of pain. It was a laugh of utter amusement.

The thing's laugh was guttural, made ragged by whatever sick necromancy powered it, but, beneath the distortion, Riven recognized it.

Suspended across its back by her grip on the hilt of her sword, blade still buried in dead flesh, and her rapidly failing grip on the thing's armor, Riven froze.

She remembered a slowly decaying corpse, skin tinged green by rot. She remembered the exposed bone of a jaw, a limp tongue struggling to form words. She remembered a chilling crimson gaze, unblinking.

She remembered nothing of a hulking grey beast, several heads taller than the tallest Noxian soldier, and with the bulk to match. She remembered nothing of quaking ground and black iron armor.

But the laugh was unmistakable.

"Captain?"


	3. Chapter 3

If her dead captain heard her, he gave no indication of it.

A slight shift in the monster's weight was all the warning Riven had before he pivoted, turning his back to the wall to slam against it.

With neither the proper leverage nor the time to pry her sword free from the thing's neck, Riven let go of her handholds and dropped to the floor, narrowly avoiding being crushed.

Her opponent was slow, recovering from his collision with the wall with all the grace of a crippled ox, and that gave her a half moment to think.

She wanted to put distance between them, but she didn't want to give him any chance to build momentum. However, being flattened beneath his feet by staying close seemed a far more sure death.

Riven scrambled away. As she pushed herself up from the floor, regaining her footing, she grabbed hold of a loose rock, a leftover from when the new door was installed.

Her opponent having remained standing after taking a sword to his neck, a rock, even one as large as the one she'd found, would hardly be any help, but it was better than nothing.

Recovered now, her captain advanced one lumbering step at a time. Riven matched him, retreating, taking two steps for every one of his.

She was retreating back into the cavern of the barracks, where he would have all the space he needed to swing his axe with full force. It couldn't be helped though. She wasn't willing to attempt to dive through his legs again to reverse positions a second time. Tricks rarely worked more than once. Underestimating an opponent was how good soldiers died.

The enemy before her now didn't seem to feel pain and was, apparently, unable to die.

If he didn't feel pain, she doubted he'd tire. But she was made of flesh and blood powered by a beating heart. If it came to a battle of attrition, her constantly dodging and never striking effectively, she would lose.

Her captain swung his axe across his body, sweeping across a broad area in front of him.

Riven darted back, widening the space between them further.

At the end of his swing, he shifted his grip, taking the axe in two hands and raising it far above his head.

With such a long windup, Riven had enough time to throw herself to the side.

When the axe met the floor, stone chips exploded outwards. A few larger ones sprayed into Riven's face, leaving it covered in blood – far too much blood, enough to drip down, she couldn't take the time to assess, but she knew at least one of the cuts was deep.

If it came to a battle of attrition, she would lose sooner rather than later.

The monster shifted back to wielding its axe, the size of which dwarfed even Darius' weapon, in a single hand.

And then it's jaw, a metal thing of bolts and weld lines, moved. "Blood. Blood. It's been… too long."

Together, Riven and her captain circled one another.

He laughed. He spoke. Maybe she didn't have to fell him. She only needed to prove her strength.

How.

Again he swung, again Riven managed to avoid being cleaved in two.

Years ago, years and years ago, when Demacia was the only front Noxus marched to, her captain's lieutenant and an entire squad died in an ambush along what should have been a safe road.

At muster the next day, her captain took his axe, his dearest possession, and dropped it on the ground. "First to pick it up is lieutenant," he said.

He sat back and laughed as man after man failed to lift the weapon.

Everyone mourns in their own way.

Riven gripped her rock tighter. Her eyes narrowed, focusing on the movement of the massive axe as it rose and fell and rose again.

She needed the axe.

Somehow.

She'd have to get close, fight for it where she wasn't pitting her strength against his and against bad leverage as well.

How.

A lifetime ago, the positions had been reversed. She'd been the juggernaut, wielding a sword that stood as tall as she did, that was as broad as her shoulders.

Katarina had been fast and agile and reckless enough to do what until then Riven had never even considered.

Riven wasn't as fast as the assassin, wasn't as agile, wasn't so brash, but her captain was slow and she had no other plan.

Fueled by a fresh burst of adrenaline, Riven dashed to the side and forward, putting her well within range of the most deadly part of her captain's axe. He took the bait splendidly, swinging horizontally, giving her the broad surface she needed.

Trusting her strength, Riven leapt up, twisting in the air, spinning so she was parallel to the weapon. Her shoulder slammed into the flat of the axehead. With her empty hand, she grabbed at the shaft of the axe so she wouldn't be thrown loose, then yanked herself forward coming close to the enormous hand that controlled the weapon.

He'd always had a habit of holding his axe too high. Even he had found the massive chunk of steel heavy.

Grimly clinging to the shaft of the axe, Riven raised her other hand and slammed her rock down on her captain's fingers.

She was rewarded with the sound of shattering bone.

Her captain may now have been immune to pain and death, but a mangled hand could only do so much.

The axe slipped from his fingers, falling to the floor, and Riven with it.

Even before she'd reached the ground, Riven dropped her rock and got both hands around the axe.

It was heavier than she remembered.

Her sword had been broken, corroded down by Zaunite acid until, thin and brittle, it shattered. She hadn't swung a weapon as large as the axe in years.

She wasn't as strong as she'd been.

But she wasn't weak.

Riven ground her teeth, straining at the effort it took to raise the axe as she backed away from the monster before her. Her shoulder, injured as it was from the beginning of their duel, screamed in protest.

If she faltered, she would die.

One step back, two steps back, three steps and her captain didn't try to follow.

Burning red eyes bored into her with an intensity that shouldn't belong to the dead and the furnace in her captain's chest was equally bright. His voice – it sent a shiver down Riven's spine when he spoke. His voice sounded like him, but at the same time it didn't. It was bestial in a way unnatural to him. "Girl."

Riven took another step back. Her heart, beating fast already from fighting for her life, sped up. She was suddenly keenly aware of the sweat beaded on her brow, the blood dripping from her chin, the way the leather strips of the axe grip felt under her fingers, the sound of her breathing in the high vaulted cavern. He recognized her then? It truly was him? "Captain," she answered, fighting to stop her voice from wavering.

Once, when times had been simple, she had counted her captain as one of her closest friends. She'd trusted him with her life, in battle and in the uncertain moments of peace accorded to a soldier.

And when he'd died, cut down in a reckless charge, she'd wanted for nothing else but for him to have survived, to have lived, to have him still.

But not like this.

She'd dreamed him leading her again – alive. Not dead.

The dead were meant to stay dead. They deserved their rest.

What was she to make of this thing before her now?

"Girl, you broke my hand," he rumbled. "Good." Finger by finger, he flexed his mangled hand. If it hurt, his face didn't show it. Crack, crack, crack – broken bones shifting and grinding in ways they shouldn't.

Riven shivered. Noxus was known throughout Valoran for being second only to the shadowy eastern isles in its count of risen corpses, but no soldier, even a Noxian, ever felt entirely comfortable with things that were never meant to be.

For the time being though, there were matters more pressing than her unease.

The blood on her face was no longer running as freely as before, but, from the way the skin burned, the cuts would need to be addressed. Not now though. They were minor injuries and they could wait. At least one of the cuts was deep, but she was in no danger at all of bleeding out. The pain could be ignored.

In her hands, her captain's axe was beginning to slip. Her injured shoulder was growing no stronger. She couldn't hold on forever. Would he attack if she put the weapon down? She had to let go soon, while she could still choose in what fashion she dropped it.

Deliberately, Riven raised her arms so that she held the axe out before her at shoulder height. And then she let go.

The steel dropped fast and when it landed it lay unmoving, far too heavy to bounce or clatter.

Her captain watched the weapon fall, but he didn't move.

For now then, he was pacified.

Would it last?

In life, her captain had been famed for the berserker's rage that took him and carried him across the battlefield, leaving a swathe of carnage in his wake. He'd been majestic in his brutality. The men of his company had always given him a wide berth at the end of the battles and in return he'd never turned against them.

In death, it seemed, the rules might not be the same.

If it came to it, she knew she lacked the strength to put him down.

But, in the moment, he was calm. And he knew her.

Riven wet her lips. "Sir," she began, and then stopped herself. In life, he'd been her captain. Years after his life, however, she had risen and he was dead. "Sion," she said, trying to chase confusion and doubt out of her voice, to replace them with the steel of confidence. "I am here as your commander."

The words rolled off her tongue easily. She had broken his hand and taken his axe. He would respect her as his superior, if there was anything left of Noxus in him. It was right that it be so.

Sion regarded her with unblinking red eyes.

Those red eyes were practically the only thing that had remained unchanged about him from when last she'd seen him.

Riven remembered him as he was mere months after the necromancers had finished their work with him. He'd been a half-rotten husk of a beast chained down in a small cell. The chains had hardly been necessary. Even as she approached, the only motion he made was to move his burning eyes, tracking her path across his cell.

She'd spoken to him, then.

He'd said nothing in reply. His lower jaw had been completely missing, leaving a moldy tongue to hang limp and useless.

Had he mind enough then to wish to speak?

The question haunted her for weeks and months after. As the years passed though, it had fallen from her mind, as had he.

In those intervening years, he'd been repaired - somewhat. The green tinge of necrotic flesh was gone, replaced by a dull, desiccated grey. Iron was bolted into him, covering what once had been exposed bone. He had a working mouth again.

He used that mouth to laugh. "Then what are your orders, girl? Where do we march and whom do we kill?"

Driven by instinct, Riven answered by rote. "We march west to kill the enemies of Noxus, wherever we find them." She knew these words as well as she knew her sword.

"We take what we will," Sion continued. The depth of his rumbling voice sounded like the roar of a company readying themselves for war.

"Victorious, we are strong," Riven replied, her volume growing, not matching Sion's, but nearing it.

"Weak, we are dead," her captain finished. He reached up to his neck and pulled Riven's weapon free. The blade was clean and dry, entirely bloodless. Sion tossed it back to her. "You are my commander," he said, "So command."

With the ease of a lifetime's experience, Riven reached out and caught her sword by the hilt.

For the first time since returning to Noxus, Riven felt herself grinning.

The deep seated sense of wrongness lingered in her, but it was smothered by the radiant joy of what she wanted to believe. Sion, her captain, her friend, here he was before her. He was dead, he was wrong, but he moved and he spoke and he knew her – it was so easy to think him alive.

It was good, not being alone.

But what now?

Riven's orders had been to review her new quarters and then to report to Darius. There was little to see in the cavern. The central chamber was vast and empty, large enough to be a parade ground for muster and drills. High Command had its own mess hall for the officers who spent their days in the seat of Noxus, relieving any need for this barracks to run a kitchen. The various individual chambers were thus far unoccupied. The first half of her orders were complete then.

And that brought her to her first problem of command.

The chaos of battle and the confusion of emotions that had followed it had blotted out most thought, yes, but not to the point that she was blind to caution. She'd come too near to death to forget the bloodrage she'd faced not even an hour prior. She did not trust Sion left alone. She knew nothing of his rebirth. Would he devolve once more if… what might trigger that?

Was he fit to walk the halls of High Command?

A silly question. Her captain had always been a pillar of strength, a Noxian through and through. None were as fit as he to walk High Command.

So they would go together to Darius.

Riven felt anger flush her cheeks. Had he known Sion was here? Had he known and failed to warn her?

Darius would have answers. And if he did not have answers, Riven would find the answers she sought and take them for herself.

"Follow me," Riven said.

Sion lifted his black axe from where it lay on the floor at Riven's feet and he did as he was ordered.

Riven lead them first to the infirmary near the training rooms. In another life, she'd had an office in the basement of High Command and she'd gained some familiarity with the labyrinthine layout of halls and rooms given to the less important members of the Noxian government.

This particular infirmary was not so much an infirmary as it was a supply room with clean water and mirrors. In the past, she'd heard that there was a real medical center higher up in the compound that was staffed, but, for her purposes, the basement one sufficed. She quickly cleaned the cuts on her face – now that she could examine them she saw that they weren't serious, just bloody and uncomfortable – and then she departed again, heading upwards.

The way up to Darius' office was simple to navigate. Although she'd been there only once before, she had an excellent sense of direction that not even the winding of High Command's corridors could dull.

As they passed through the halls, men stopped in their tracks and they stared, not bothering to feign some other activity. The attention made Riven's skin crawl. She'd been away for so long that it was hard to remember that she belonged here. She found little comfort in reminding herself that the onlookers were staring at Sion and not her.

When they finally reached their destination, the hall outside of Darius' office, as remote and high as it was in the building, was, mercifully, empty, save for the hunched figure of Draven leaning up against the wall across from his brother's door.

At Riven and Sion's approach, Draven looked up and sneered. His eyes lingered on Sion's hulking form, but they soon shifted to Riven. "Oh, so he'll see you but he won't make time for Draven. His own brother."

Riven was interested in neither provoking Draven nor taking part in a family quarrel. Whatever her feelings, it wasn't her place to express them. She had to respond somehow though. Draven was not a bad man and, strange though he was, he was strong enough to merit some respect. She cleared her throat. "I'm here on business." She made a small gesture to indicate Sion behind her, hoping Draven would interpret it as a sense of immediacy, urgency, that her business was near, and let her disengage from conversation.

Draven crossed his arms. Combined with his slouch, it made him seem even more petulant than before. "So am I."

As Draven either didn't understand her intent or didn't care to respond to it, Riven stepped forward and to the side, towards Darius' door. She raised her hand to knock but unexpected movement behind her made her pause and turn back.

Sion was crouched down, face shoved up close to Draven's face.

Draven, for his part, stood stock still. His eyes were wide and, if fear had a scent, Riven knew the air would reek of it. Perhaps she had overestimated him.

"What," Sion rumbled, "are you?"

Draven snarled and drew himself up. "I'm Draven. The Glorious Executioner of Noxus, in the flesh."

"You smell," Sion began. Despite having no need for air, he inhaled deeply. "Weak."

Riven thought to intervene, but she hesitated. In life, Sion's sense of humor had kept the company's spirits aloft even during the long months they spent summering in the swamps along the northwestern borders. In death, it seemed he had not lost his penchant for terrorizing the unsuspecting.

It was strange how, when she thought of how she'd missed him, she'd always remembered him for his strength. She'd forgotten the smaller things.

To his credit, Draven did not back down. Years ago, Riven thought, he would have. "And you smell like a corpse," he replied.

Sion chuckled. Then, without warning, he lurched forward, knocking his forehead into Draven's.

Draven went sprawling.

Sion's chuckle turned into his full, booming, laugh. Riven found herself joining in, though much more quietly.

In an instant, Draven was back up on his feet. His empty hands were clenched tight into fists. Rage contorted his face. "Don't you dare laugh at me," he hissed.

Riven's laughter faltered, but Sion's continued, stronger now.

Darius' door opened.

Of the three in the hall, only Riven came to attention for the general. Sion quieted as the focus of his attention shifted. Draven remained silent.

Looking no less weary than he had the previous day, Darius scanned the scene. His gaze finally came to rest on the enormous axe held in Sion's left hand. Darius' perpetual frown deepened.

So Darius hadn't known then.

"Sion," Darius said, tone even. He turned towards Riven. "Where did you find him?"

"He was in the barracks, sir," Riven answered.

Darius grunted, giving an acknowledgement that he'd heard her. He stepped back into his office. When he reemerged, he was holding his own gleaming axe, taken from its resting place. From his stance, it was clear he intended to use it.

With no small amount of alarm, Riven asked, "Sir?"

"The dead are meant to stay dead," Darius said. "There's no place for his kind in Noxus."

Sion shifted, tightening his grip on his weapon. He sneered. "Do you challenge me, little man?"

Darius looked visibly shaken by Sion's words alone. He shifted into a solid stance.

"Sir," Riven cut in. If Darius and Sion fought, one of them would end in pieces. "I want him for my Crimson Elite."

Darius didn't reply immediately, but nor did he advance. He was thinking.

Riven's lips tightened. Darius was fiercely protective of his brother, regardless of whether Draven needed or deserved it. But she'd said her piece already. There was nothing more she could add.

Finally, Darius spoke. "Riven, my office, now. Draven… Sion… Wait."

"Bro," Draven said, voice plaintive.

Darius had already turned his back on his way towards his open door. "Draven - I trust you can take care of yourself."


	4. Chapter 4

Darius laid down his axe next to his desk before taking a seat, back upright and stiff with his arms crossed over his chest. It was the pose of a man who would prefer to stand, would prefer actions to words, who didn't quite understand the notion or the stillness of sitting. A frown dominated his features and, reading the lines of his face, it was clear he spent most of his time frowning.

Riven sat across from him. Behind her, they had left the door ajar. No matter the harshness of his words to the younger man, Darius would never risk his brother's life.

"There's blood on your shirt," Darius said.

Riven looked down. Indeed, her front was splattered with blood – hers. She'd cleaned the cuts on her face, but hadn't given any thought to her clothes. The garments she'd worn in Bilgewater had been perpetually stained with blood, sometimes hers, sometimes someone else's, and it had never been worth the effort to clean or replace them. Before then, the black uniform of a Noxian officer hid blood and dirt splendidly. The off-white tunic she wore now, though, the standard issue to a foot soldier quartered in the city, was a different story entirely. It was meant to be kept clean. It was a sign of discipline.

But even if she'd noticed the great brown splotches of dried blood earlier, there'd been no opportunity to wash her clothes. It couldn't have been helped and thus she had nothing to regret.

"I broke his hand," Riven replied.

Darius grunted, signaling that she'd been heard. He showed no signs of surprise, neither disbelief nor admiration.

Riven said nothing more.

Darius was the superior officer here. It was for him to drive whatever conversation there might be.

The hallway outside the office remained silent as well. Good. If Draven were in danger, he'd be in danger loudly. And – Sion – if Sion acted, it would not be quiet.

"I went for him after we disposed of Kieran," Darius rumbled. "To put him out of his misery. He wasn't in his cell. I couldn't find him." Resting in the crook of his elbows, his hands balled into fists. His tone bore the edge of anger. "I looked. Everywhere."

The implications of Darius' words swirled in Riven's mind, but they were dulled by exhaustion. The adrenaline of her fight had worn off now and the weight of the day's events, the day that was only half over, was beginning to settle on her. The tremendous speed of change around her was overwhelming.

"I thought Darkwill finally found the stones to do it himself," Darius said. For a moment, his face twisted with disdain.

Riven wet her lips, choosing her words. Darius was a Noxian through and through. Once he set his mind to something, it would be nigh impossible to dissuade him from action. "He's not like he was before. He's not dead anymore."

Darius flicked a few fingers forward, indicating the bloodstains on Riven's shirt. Annoyance colored his voice. "I can see that." He paused, then, "It's like he's who he was before."

Riven nodded her agreement. Darius' words were leaning in Sion's favor, in her favor, now – she hoped.

"You remember him," Darius said. It wasn't a question. "You remember him right after."

Again, Riven nodded. Gooseflesh rippled on her arms.

"I'll have to speak with the Grand General," Darius rumbled. "We need to know who did this."

It sounded like a concession. It sounded like Darius might let Sion remain animate, at least for a time. Satisfied there wasn't anything more she could do at present, Riven changed tack. "The runner who escorted me to the barracks, she knew. She took a magic lock off the door."

Darius' frown deepened. When he spoke again, his voice was low, too low to carry far. "When general Du Couteau vanished, he took his spies with him. Pity. We could have used them. The chances of tracking that runner down, if she was a runner, are slim."

Against her will, Riven felt her attention shift at the mention of the general Du Couteau. He'd been the right hand of Boram Darkwill. Riven herself had met him on only a few memorable occasions – though they had not been memorable on account of the general. It was much the same as how, now, her thoughts were diverted at his mention, but not because of him.

The general had been Katarina's father.

And then he'd disappeared.

Even in distant Bilgewater, there'd been news when the second most powerful man in Noxus vanished overnight. When he did not reappear, as the months passed, it became clear to everyone he was dead.

How had Katarina reacted at his death?

Riven had never known her parents.

What was the grief of losing a father?

Sion, her captain, he had been a friend and, perhaps, he'd been something of a father to her. He'd certainly had a hand in turning her from a green child, gifted with raw strength but having only training to count for experience, to a soldier, a survivor.

In the days following his death, Riven had felt the weight of the world on her. She and her company had waited over a week for the agent dispatched by High Command to retrieve his corpse. The body of such a leader, such a hero, could not be allowed to remain in the clutches of the enemy.

When Katarina arrived in their camp with his great, decaying, body, Riven and her men buried him in a fresh-cut pine coffin.

Fire was traditional, but the constant rain along the northern stretch of the border in the summer made burning the dead impossible.

In the course of a soldier's life, men died. Weak men died first, strong men last, but all men died – good men, bad men, foes, friends. Some men died on the field, their guts slashed open, their innards spilling out while they clawed at themselves, trying to hold themselves together while they cried, mixing hot blood with salty tears. Other men died quietly in the night, lying in hard beds, wounds rotting them from the inside out, even after their legs had been hacked away from them to stop infection's spread. A few men died in the city, old, tired, their strength having left them, their purpose having run out.

When Riven's captain died, she and her comrades had mourned him. And then they had buried him. And when, alone, Riven unearthed his coffin for Katarina to cart back to the city, she'd accepted that he was dead and she'd turned her mind to other things.

Death was the course of life.

That her captain now stood out in the hallway behind her – did that change anything?

Did any man, even one as great as he'd been, deserve a second chance?

Years ago, seeing him chained in the basement of High Command, both rotting and moving, had revived the sharp grief that she'd felt when he'd first died, the grief that felt less like an emotion and more like a steel knife driven through her chest.

But it had faded, quicker than it had the first time.

She'd been so sure that her captain was really, truly, gone.

Riven shook her head slightly, trying to chase away her wandering thoughts. They were thoughts for another time.

Darius leaned forward slightly. He was still frowning. "I have a task for you."

Riven's brow furrowed. "Sir?" The previous day, he'd given her no warning about any impending assignments or duties aside from establishing a company. She'd done the same work for Fury Company, before Ionia. She'd handpicked her men, the best soldiers from the skeleton remains of the second army group. The survivors. She'd set drills, requisitioned necessary supplies, prepared for war. It had been different work from leading men in battle as a captain, but she'd risen to the challenge.

It had also taken her several weeks. And she'd had help.

From what Darius had said before, she'd thought to do the same thing, on a similar schedule.

"You were involved with general Du Couteau's daughter," Darius said. It wasn't a question.

Riven swallowed. She nodded, once. She tried to ignore the sudden empty void she felt in her stomach. What business did Darius have for her that concerned Katarina?

Darius spoke slowly, as if he were choosing every word with care. "She retired from High Command shortly after Swain became Grand General. She said she was leaving to care for her sister. We've hardly heard from her since."

Riven's response came just as slow, just as measured. "Care for her sister?" From Darius' tone, she found herself dreading his answer.

Riven hadn't known Katarina's sister well. The time they'd first met, Cassiopeia's advances had made Riven uncomfortable and that was what she remembered the woman for. After that, in all the time Riven had spent visiting the Du Couteau household, Cassiopeia had remained almost perfectly absent from Riven's presence.

"Cassiopeia Du Couteau…" Darius paused and raised his left hand to gesture, forming the traditional ward against evil. "She was… during negotiations towards the end of the campaign in the north, one of their people turned her into a snake."

Riven could only stare blankly forward.

She'd expected… She couldn't quite recall what she'd expected. Sickness, perhaps. Not…

Without thinking, Riven raised her own hand and mimicked Darius' ward.

Somewhere in the static white noise of Riven's shock, Darius was still talking. "Katarina blamed Swain for her sister's mistake. His campaign, his negotiations. We haven't heard from her in a while, and we haven't tried to contact her."

And now Riven knew what Darius wanted. She shifted in her seat, suddenly hyper aware of her surroundings. Her chair was wood and lacked a cushion. It wasn't uncomfortable, but it certainly wasn't luxurious. The fountain pen on Darius' desk was silver in color but likely steel in make. The windows behind him were open, allowing a cool breeze. The sun was still high enough in the sky that it was day, but it was beginning to dip towards the horizon, casting long shadows in the office.

"Go to Katarina," Darius said. "If she has access to any of her father's spies, we need them. Most of them were loyal to him, not to High Command. They might still be loyal to her."

Stiff, Riven cleared her throat. She opened her mouth slightly, but words were not forthcoming. She cleared her throat again.

"Is there a problem, commander?" Darius rumbled.

Riven fought down her instinct to tell the truth. "No sir."

"She was furious with High Command when you died. She'll be happy you're alive," Darius said. "And she'll be more willing to work with you than with any of the rest of us."

Riven nodded numbly. "Yes sir."

It had been two months since Riven returned to Noxus.

Darius, who'd certainly interacted with Katarina more recently than Riven, said Katarina would be happy to see her.

Should she have sought Katarina out sooner?

Guilt settled in Riven's gut like a great stone, trying to pull her down through her chair and then through the floor.

She'd hardly thought of Katarina in the past years.

Surely Katarina, caught up in the upper echelons of Noxus, dealing with her sister's predicament and her father's death, had thought even less of her.

Surely.

They'd slept together for a short while. It was hardly uncommon for soldiers to take a lover while stationed a few months in the city and then to forget her come time for deployment. What was more, Katarina's skill and boldness had certainly spoke an ease that only came with experience.

Even before Couer, Riven had had little reason to expect whatever she'd had with Katarina could be resumed upon her return.

Which, admittedly, hadn't stopped her from hoping.

And now – Katarina had been angry when Fury Company was annihilated?

Katarina had cared?

"But that's for tomorrow," Darius said, intruding on Riven's tumultuous thoughts. "There's a tailor waiting with your new uniform." He paused, then, "And he'll be furious when he has to size Sion."

Personal contemplations could wait when there was business at hand. Riven glanced back toward the slightly ajar door. So Darius had decided? After his concession that Sion was something akin to what he'd been before, she hadn't seriously doubted he'd let Sion survive at least for a while longer – but the confirmation was welcome.

"I can keep him then?" Riven asked. In a way it was an unnecessary question as he'd had already made himself clear on that point. But it was also a prompt for him to set out any conditions he might have.

"Don't make me regret this," Darius answered. He lifted a hand to wave her on her way. "You're expected in the central supply room on the first basement level. Take Sion with you. Go."

"Yes sir." Riven stood to leave.

"Riven," Darius started.

"Sir?" she answered.

"Close the door behind you," he finished.

Standing at the threshold, her hand on the door handle, Riven glanced out into the hall.

Sion stood unnaturally still, in the manner unique to the dead. His gaze was pointed at the wall and he appeared not to notice Riven's reemergence from the office. She couldn't be sure, but the red furnace in his chest seemed to have dimmed from what she recalled only a short time before. Perhaps it was a trick of the light though. The cavernous barracks had been dim and everything looks brighter in the dark.

Draven was a good distance from Sion, well out of reach. He was scowling and, unlike Sion, he was watching Riven intently.

Riven pulled the door firmly shut.

Darius' brother or not, Draven had no business challenging her.

Draven's scowl twisted into a forced smile. He shrugged, making the motion exaggerated enough it was impossible to miss, then turned and walked away.

Riven frowned at Draven's retreating back.

What was it like to have a brother?

Was Darius better off for it?

She'd wondered much the same things years ago when she first met the two men. She still didn't have an answer.

Riven turned her attention to Sion.

He was still staring at the empty wall.

"Captain," Riven said sharply. It was a strange thing, speaking to him as a superior instead of as his lieutenant. She doubted she'd ever become entirely accustomed to it.

At her address, Sion's head moved so that he could stare at her instead of the wall.

A shiver ran down Riven's spine. Sion wasn't blinking. Did he still have eyelids?

For a moment, she doubted. The Sion that had driven home to her that he was who he'd been – that Sion had been animate. This Sion was almost as lifeless as… as the corpse he was.

Riven cleared her throat. She'd made her decision. Darius had made his decision. There was no room for doubt. "Come with me."

Wordless, Sion obeyed.

Returning back to the basement caverns of High Command, they attracted no less attention than on the way up to Darius' office. Riven did her best to ignore it.

The supply center Darius mentioned was easy to find. She'd been there many times before, years ago when she was working through the details of outfitting a newly made company.

The open doors to the room were, thankfully, large enough for Sion to pass through them. They'd been made that way to accommodate deliveries of nearly any size. Built partly from a vast naturally occurring cavern, the depot stretched seemingly as far as the eye could see, perfectly ordered shelves row after row vanishing into distant murk. Slim clerks manned the front of the room, taking orders and then scurrying off into the labyrinth of storage. Once, when kings instead of generals ruled Noxus, the seat of the city had been a fortress as well as a palace. The supply room, the barracks of the Crimson Elite, the cistern that supplied water to the entirety of High Command – these were all vestiges of that era.

Now, an age after its use a stockpile fit to withstand a siege, the supply room served to cater to the whims of the generals who occupied the complex and also to store anything that couldn't be used by the army at large. Over the years, surplus from over-zealous orders had accumulated here, turning what could have been a small, functional, operation into a sprawling maze of forgotten equipment and all sorts of useless things.

The tailor, a man too slight to be of any use in battle, was one of the grey-clad clerks permanently assigned to the room. Contrary to Darius' prediction, the small man was pleased to the point of enthusiasm when confronted with Sion. Riven watched with some trepidation as Sion stood obediently still while the tailor climbed over him with a measuring tape. Throughout the process though, Sion made no move to violence.

In the low light of the supply room, Riven was certain that the light of Sion's chest was indeed dimmer than it had been when they'd fought and the moments immediately following. Perhaps it was caused by his inaction – or was it the other way around?

Riven frowned. She disliked puzzles.

When the tailor finished with Sion, it was Riven's turn.

A great many years ago, Sion, with his massive, meaty, fingers, had refashioned a standard Noxian officer's uniform to fit his newly minted lieutenant's figure. At first, Riven had been surprised at his skill with a needle, but it made sense. All soldiers, even ones as hulking and bloodthirsty as her captain, had to stitch up their gear. She'd worn that uniform until it was faded and threadbare and unfit for any sort of ceremony.

When it was finally time to replace it, she'd done the modifications on her new uniform herself.

Having a tailor, a man trained to work cloth, squint at her, poke her, prod her, measure her with a rule and tape – it was a new experience and not a particularly pleasant one.

Riven envied Sion's deathly patience.

When he finished, the tailor took his instruments and packed them away. "Wait," he said. Not giving Riven time to protest, he scurried away into the dark of the depot.

Left with nothing to do, Riven shifted her weight from foot to foot as she case her eyes about the room. The shelves nearest to where she and Sion stood held pens, paper, ink pots, and other things that were commonly used by the sedentary officers of High Command. Somewhat farther away, she could make out the dim silhouettes of unopened boxes. What did they hold? Spare hextech bulbs, perhaps, or maybe tableware for the mess hall.

The supply depots at the base of the mountain, the ones used by working soldiers, held steel, steel, and more steel.

And that was a thought – since returning to Noxus, Riven had used blunt training swords of the standard size in drills. Instead of personal armor, she'd worn the battered and ill-fitting suits designated for relatively safe practice bouts.

Given her recent promotion, it would be a simple thing to take a new set of armor for herself. A sword though, that was something else entirely. Though they held some blades forged for men of Darius' size, the common depots that served the military district didn't hold any true Noxian zweihanders. On more than one occasion throughout her career, Riven's peers had reminded her that it was a miracle she'd ever managed to find such an antique weapon, much less that she managed to wield it.

Given Riven's strength, there were very few things she couldn't wield. Since Couer, she'd been using her broken runeblade to better effect than many men managed with conventional weapons. She'd had to make some adjustments to her tactics and movements to use the shorter blade, but in the end she was still deadly. What was more, though it was broken, though the runes had been blurred by Zaunite acid, there was still some power left in it, still enough weight to that power it that it resonated in her blood. Was that power and connection enough to justify not taking up a whole blade?

There were definite advantages to fighting with a larger weapon. The longer reach could be the difference between life and death. But shorter blades had their own advantages as well.

The tailor's return ripped Riven from her thoughts.

In his hands was a uniform, which he gave to her.

It was a similar design to the Noxian infantry officer's uniform, but the colors were different. Instead of solid black, this uniform was a deep red. The trims that, for a general, would have been slim red piping against black, were wide stripes of black on red. Instead of silvery steel buttons, this uniform had bright brass.

Riven was not one to be impressed by clothes, but the tailor was a different story entirely.

"Go try it on," he urged. "I'll have a new set made by the end of the week. For him too," he said, pointing to Sion, then continued, "But see how well this one fits. We fixed it this morning for you." A touch of annoyance crept into his voice. "The work order last year didn't mention any women."

Without hesitating, Riven pulled off her bloody shirt and her boots and pants quickly followed.

The tailor let out a startled squeak.

Riven looked down at herself. Was there something wrong? There was blood on her chest, some of it staining the wraps she used to keep her breasts bound, but she wasn't injured. The scars that covered her torso were old. There was the place a Demacian halberd had almost gutted her, punching through armor and lodging in her side, a bare inch from her vitals. There was the dark mark left by a pirate's cutlass dipped in filth – Bilgewater scum didn't fight fair and, though the wound had been slight, the infection that followed had very nearly been the end of her. And there was the long raised scar that Darius' axe had left.

A true Noxian faced death head on and defeated it by his strength.

Riven's scars, the ones on her front, at least, were badges of honor.

Riven looked up.

The tailor had turned his back.

Oh.

So in addition to having a useless frame, he had a civilian's temperament as well.

Ignoring him, Riven dressed herself in her new uniform.

It fit surprisingly well. It wasn't quite like her old uniform, but it fit her far better than the standard infantry officer's uniform, which was cut for men far larger than her.

Riven cleared her throat to catch the tailor's attention. The small man turned back around.

Embarrassment forgotten in an instant, the tailor wasted no time in returning to poking and prodding her, checking the fit of the uniform. When he finally relented, he backed away, making a satisfied clucking noise. "Good," he said. "Come back in a week."

The tailor was turning to head back to doing whatever it was supply clerks did in the recesses of their domain when no officers demanded their attention when Riven stepped forward. "Wait," she said.

Small man that he was, the tailor startled at her order.

"Zweihanders," Riven said. "Do you have any?"

The look the tailor gave her was an exaggerated cross between confusion and disbelief. He hesitated before giving his answer. "I think so."

Suspecting she'd get nowhere without being more explicit, Riven prompted, "I want one."

The tailor frowned, then, "This way." Not waiting to see if Riven would follow, he scurried off into the dark between shelves – the shelves that were too closely placed for Sion's bulk.

Riven paused for a brief moment, thinking. Should she leave Sion? She glanced at him quickly. He seemed docile enough.

The tailor was rapidly moving away.

Mind made up, Riven set off at a jog to catch up with him.

Together, they moved along very poorly lit paths. They passed shelves filled with every sort of useless thing imaginable. The years had turned a once functional supply room into a vast stock of clutter.

Eventually, the tailor stopped before a large weapons rack holding what had to be every make of colossal sword in Valoran.

Riven's eyes lingered on the stock of Demacian greatswords at one end of the rack. Last deployed east instead of west, she hadn't seen one since her final campaign on the Demacian border.

No – that wasn't quite right.

Katarina had owned one. She'd asked Riven to teach her to use it in exchange for teaching Riven to read and write.

Neither nature nor training had gifted Katarina with the brute strength required to properly wield a greatsword and the endeavor had been, in a word, doomed.

Nevertheless, Riven had quite enjoyed trying to pass on her art. It had been rewarding, validating, even, to have some skill to barter for what couldn't be bought with strength alone. And, well, it certainly hadn't hurt that Katarina had been extremely attractive.

Riven shook her head to clear it.

She had no interest in Demacian greatswords. Their place on the battlefield was as anti-cavalry weapons. A few stubborn soldiers tried to use them elsewhere, but, lacking the axe-head portion of the Noxian zweihander, they were simply not as useful when it came to crushing shields, breastplates, bones.

Riven turned her gaze to the massive zweihanders on the other side of the weapons rack.

Each one was made to the same standard as Riven's first zweihander had been. It was hardly surprising. She'd inherited her sword from a fallen comrade, one whose father had served in the last company to carry the massive swords. While many Noxian companies had little tolerance for deviation from military standards, Sion had run his command rather differently. He'd allowed his men to use whatever weapon they chose, so long as they had the strength to use it. The result had been a somewhat poorly organized group that was considered the most deadly company of the Second Army.

Where would Riven be were it not for her captain?

Riven raised a hand to grasp the hilt of one of the zweihanders, then paused, fingers hovering an inch from the leather-wrapped grip.

Her captain's axe had been too heavy for her to manage.

She wasn't as strong as she'd once been.

Did she still have the strength to wield a full zweihander?

Anger flared in her. Self-doubt was a toxin she had no use for. Her hand closed around the hilt of the sword and she took it down from its place on the rack.

Though it was not light, it was not as heavy as she'd feared.

It was lighter than her captain's axe. It was lighter than her runesword had been. It was lighter than the blade Katarina had gifted her for midwinter.

The steel was of the same quality as her first blade – the blade that had broken beneath Darius' axe when she'd most needed it to hold.

Would this blade break as her last two blades had?

Inevitably, it would. All blades break, someday. She'd once thought that her runesword would be an exception, but Couer proved her wrong. What did it matter that this blade too might someday fail?

Holding her new blade aloft with a single hand, Riven made a tight, controlled, practice swing in the small space available between shelves.

It was a good blade, balanced well enough. In the dim light of the storage room, thick globs of grease were visible on the steel, warding off rust.

She would take this blade, then. And she would keep her broken sword as well. Both would have their purpose.

Riven turned towards the tailor who'd led her deep into the depths of the labyrinth of shelves.

He was openly gaping.

Riven smiled.


	5. Chapter 5

Dawn was a strange thing underground.

When Riven woke, she couldn't tell what time of day it was. In a normal barracks, the officers would rise with the sun and then rouse their men. In Riven's barracks, there was no sun and Sion didn't slumber.

Rest, it seemed, was for the living.

The previous night, she'd left him standing still in the center of the cavern. No order she gave had convinced him to lay down and sleep and she'd quickly given up. She was no one's caretaker. In any case, his bulk was too great to fit into one of the rooms allotted as individual quarters. A part of Riven slept easier knowing that nothing short of smashing through the cave walls would allow Sion to reach her while her guard was down.

Though she was becoming more comfortable with the thing that was her captain, men who felt themselves entirely safe lived short lives.

The room Riven had chosen for herself lacked a mirror, or, indeed, any amenities at all aside from a stone slab to lay a bedroll out on. It did not escape her attention that the traditional quarters of the Crimson Elite had not been designed with comfort in mind. Deep in the heart of the mountain, they were isolated from both sunlight and the city, from the rest of High Command, even. Years ago, so long before Riven's time, who were the Crimson Elite? What kind of citadel guard would keep themselves so far away from the citadel they were guarding? The way the main door opened outwards instead of inwards created the feel of a prison.

Though – most of the underground sectors of High Command had always struck Riven as prison-like.

The holds of ships in Bilgewater, dark and cramped and humid as they'd been, had always had the promise of good sea air only one or two decks above. And ships were made of wood. However imprudent it would be to destroy the walls of a ship, Riven had never felt that her confines were stronger than her.

Maybe if Riven had ever lived closer to the mountain than the military district she'd feel differently. High Command was far from the only Noxian building to extend deep into the stone below. Much of old Noxus, she'd heard, was within the mountain. Some men said that, once, half the city had been underground. Safer that way. But then the kings fell and the generals were strong, Noxus expanded without fear of invasion and the caves became just another slum.

If Riven had been born Noxian, perhaps she'd have grown up beneath the city instead of on its farthest edges.

Sitting on the edge of her stone bed, Riven shook her head to clear it of sleep and of fruitless thoughts. She had little patience for wondering what could have been.

Getting up, Riven dressed herself quickly. She'd worn a nearly identical uniform for years. She knew where every button was by heart, even though the uniform was smaller than the last one she'd worn. She was smaller. She'd lost weight in Ionia and Bilgewater and basic army rations hadn't been enough to build back the muscle she'd had years ago.

Riven's stomach rumbled.

Briefly, between the time of her promotion and the beginning of the Ionian campaign, she'd had the rank to eat at the officer's mess in High Command. There'd been men serving food there, enough food that she was never hungry and had boasted a thin layer of fat to show it. Times had been good.

She'd looked good.

In the dark, Riven frowned. As she gathered her unruly hair and tied it back, she would have appreciated a mirror. Though most days Riven was disinclined to put any more care than was minimally necessary into her appearance, she recognized that some situations called for it.

Seeing Katarina had always been a situation that called for it.

The Noxian aristocracy inhabited a world apart from Riven's. The first time she traveled up the mountain to the Du Couteau manor, she'd been glad for her uniform. A uniform was the most proper thing any Noxian could aspire to and it had felt like armor in the vast halls of what had been, and still was, the largest home she'd ever set foot in. In Riven's life, she'd only seen more opulence than the Du Couteau manor in High Command itself, and, even then, only in the upper halls.

Riven refused to be cowed by mere wealth and displays of gold, no matter how awesome.

But.

The Du Couteau fortune was hereditary. It was the product of generation after generation of strength. Marcus Du Couteau had been a famed general before Boram Darkwill chose him to be Hand of Noxus. Katarina was a deadly blademaster in her own right. Her skill easily exceeded that of many men in High Command who tried to lay claim to strength. Her family's wealth was not their power, merely an indication of it.

To strive for individual advancement was one thing, but to secure a legacy was something else entirely.

Walking the halls of the Du Couteau manor demanded that Riven put care into her appearance. It was a mark of discipline and discipline in and of itself was a form of strength. For Katarina's family –for Katarina – Riven felt the need to draw herself up to her fullest, to do everything she could to make her strength tangible.

Riven's new uniform fit well, but for the task ahead, she wished it fit better. She wished – she wished a lot of things.

Out in the great hall of the barracks, Sion stood still where Riven left him the night before. As she opened the door to her small room, he made no indication of noticing her entrance. The light in his chest was almost dark – but it was bright enough to illuminate the four men standing near his feet.

In an instant, Riven's hand was on the hilt of her broken sword, sheathed at her side.

Mentally, she cursed herself. The new zweihander she'd acquired the day before was propped up against the wall in the chamber behind her. Less than convenient in a city, she'd thought to leave it there for the day. But against four men, she'd have preferred the zweihander's reach to her runeblade's speed.

Alarmed by her motion, the man closest to her raised his hands, showing they were empty. "Sir," he said.

Riven loosened her grip on her blade, though she did not let go entirely.

As a unit, the four men came to attention and saluted. Now that Riven had a moment to examine them, each one wore the unadorned black uniform of a junior officer, the equivalent of a rank-and-file soldier in the halls of High Command. None of them looked particularly worn or scarred and all of them seemed young. To have been assigned to High Command, then, they must be unusually skilled or they were important sons. Riven was inclined to think the latter. Noxus had changed, but it hadn't changed enough. Thinking that they were likely not a threat, despite the swords that hung at their sides, she lowered her hand from her weapon.

"Sir, Darius, Hand of Noxus, has ordered us to watch the premise while you are away today, sir," the man who'd spoken first said. He was either the most senior of them or the least cowardly. "We are to prevent any intruders and to contain…" the young man faltered. He glanced up at Sion. "Contain… him… if he attempts to leave before the specialist arrives."

Could these four boys contain Sion if he decided to leave? No. But, for now, Sion was passive and had remained that way all through the night. "Specialist?" Riven asked.

"The Grand General has ordered a mage examine the situation," the young man replied.

The corners of Riven's mouth tugged downwards into a frown. A specialist? A necromancer. She wanted the likes of a necromancer nowhere near herself or her captain – but – if his light was fading, if he was fading…

And the Grand General had ordered it.

Riven nodded slightly, giving her assent. Really, it was the only thing she could do.

It was good, at least, that there would be eyes watching Sion while she was gone, even if those eyes belonged to men who probably could not restrain him. In fairness though, she herself lacked the physical strength to bring him down. Perhaps an examination by this 'specialist' would yield needed answers.

"You will remain until I return," Riven said, speaking in that tone somewhere between a question and an order that could only be interpreted as the latter.

"Yes sir," came the reply.

Riven nodded again, then turned to leave.

If all went well, she'd return to four young men, Sion, and someone who understood the situation better than she did. And if all did not go well – it was for every man to live or to die by his own strength.

Riven's steps took her through the halls of High Command. She drew far less attention than she had the day before. Yesterday, Sion had accompanied her. Today, she was alone.

When she stopped in the officer's mess briefly for a chunk of ham, hardly anyone looked at her.

The first time she entered High Command, she'd followed Katarina.

She'd heard that her captain was living once more and resided within the walls of the compound, but she'd lacked standing to enter by her own right.

So Katarina had taken her. A solstice gift, she'd called it. What a gift it had been. So much of Riven's life, it seemed, she owed to that gift. Waiting for Katarina outside her father's office, Riven had encountered Darius for the first time in years and from his recommendation she'd been given her runeblade and command of Fury Company, charged with proving Noxian might in the face of Zaunite tactics in Ionia.

And, on that day, Riven had seen her captain as well.

He'd been a corpse. Nothing more.

Riven had hoped – she'd hoped so hard, she'd hoped for, for what he was now, perhaps.

A vain hope. A naïve hope.

At the end of that day she'd gone out to one of the overlooks, a bit farther than halfway down the mountain. She'd wanted to be alone to mourn.

Katarina, after dismissing Riven, after spending hours lying about what was bothering her, had followed.

For that, more than anything, Riven had counted Katarina as a friend.

And, for that, Riven should have suspected Katarina would have cared when Fury Company fell at Couer.

As Riven made the short walk from High Command to the Du Couteau residence, her stomach turned itself in knots. She'd been stupid. She should have made the trek up the mountain two months ago. She'd been busy, yes, but that was an excuse. She had no patience for excuses in others, and she had even less patience for excuses in herself.

She'd told herself Katarina forgot her because they were only lovers.

But they'd been friends.

Riven's fist felt like lead as she lifted the great brass knocker on the door of the Du Couteau manor. The building towered above the street, several stories of stone carved up into an elaborate façade. Flights of thick glass windows, a luxury even lower on the mountain where the weather was not as severe, stared down on passerby. Even amongst the other houses of the old Noxian nobility, Riven had always thought the Du Couteau manor loomed somehow more majestic than its peers.

Riven had had a dream, once, before the Ionian campaign slipped from war into a lower circle of hell. She'd thought she could return from Ionia, triumphant. The Ionians were weak, they'd said. Noxus would come, would win with force. A simple campaign. She'd thought to return home, victorious. And she'd have her place in High Command, and Katarina would have her place as well, and the time they'd spent together the winter before Ionia could happen again and maybe stretch on longer.

A good dream.

A dream she'd forgotten in favor of survival.

But now she was home, she had her place in High Command, and Katarina could have one too, if she chose.

Riven shifted nervously. No one had answered the door – not Katarina, not her sister, not any of their servants.

This was the first time Riven had come to the door of the manor and no one opened it for her.

Was Katarina away? Darius had said she was caring for her sister. Surely such a task wouldn't take her far from the city. And even if Katarina did not answer her own door – why would she? – a servant should have come.

Riven looked up. Above the door, carved into the stone lintel, were the crossed knives of the Du Couteau. This was the correct house.

Hesitant, she grasped the door knocker again. As she was raising her hand to strike however, the door opened.

It was not Katarina who opened it.

The man who'd opened the door seemed familiar to Riven, though she couldn't recall if they'd ever met. He stood a few steps back from the door, into the shadows of the house. A hood hid part of his face.

It was clear from his dress that he was not a servant. His clothes were too good for a servant. They fit him well and their color was something Riven wasn't sure she had a name for. Maybe it was purple, maybe it was blue. In any case, what he wore was expensive and it wasn't Du Couteau livery. The smell of smoke and alcohol clung to him, but it was far too early in the day for such indulgences. Perhaps he'd been out all night.

Riven cleared her throat. "I'm here to-

The man cut her off. "She won't want to see you." He took another step back from the door. "Come in."

Anxiety made Riven swallow. She obligingly stepped across the threshold of the manor, into the dark. A few of the lamps in the hall were lit, but only a few along one wall, like they'd been lit for the sole purpose of the man answering the door. Coming from the bright outdoors, she could see almost nothing inside.

Almost as soon as she'd crossed into the house, the man was shutting the door behind her, and bolting it. "She's in the dining room. Do you remember the way?"

Riven shook her head. She'd never been to the dining room. She knew the way to the training room and she knew the way to Katarina's rooms, and she knew little else of the house.

The man tilted his head to indicate one of the corridors branching off from the main hall. "At the end," he said.

Riven murmured her thanks. As she set out towards the corridor, she was already forgetting about the man, save for the first thing he'd said to her.

She won't want to see you.

The rich carpet that covered the floor devoured the sound of Riven's footsteps. Portraits, presumably of Katarina's dead ancestors, stared down at her. Riven hardly noticed them.

She won't want to see you.

It echoed over and over in Riven's head, the only sound in the silence of the hallway.

She won't want to see you.

Short and to the point, it left little room for interpretation. Still, she wanted to wonder at what it meant. She preferred to think it cryptic instead of -

She won't want to see you.

But she'd been let into the house. She'd been given directions. Katarina was the head of the family, lord of the house.

So maybe -

The door to the dining room was open.

Katarina stood at the far end of the great table that crossed the hall. She was leaning over the table, hands bracing against the edge of the table, staring at some collection of papers. Morning light filtered through the tall windows of the room and settled over her in a soft halo.

Katarina didn't look up.

Riven came to a halt at the edge of the carpeted hall. If she went any farther, her step would sound on the bare stone floor.

Katarina looked – she looked different, the same, just as expected, not at all what Riven had thought –

In the years of Riven's absence, Katarina's wardrobe had changed little. Save for on formal occasions, Riven had only ever seen Katarina wear black leathers, a distinctly middle-class fashion for a woman born of the silk-clad aristocracy who also spent enough time in the field that leather could be more hindrance than protection. Today, she could have been wearing the same clothes she'd worn when Riven had last seen her – there was hardly any difference.

Was this comforting? That Katarina expressed herself in the same lines she'd used years prior?

Even from the far side of the hall, Riven could read the tension in Katarina's body. Her shoulders were drawn back slightly and she was hardly moving. Long red hair hung down to partially obscure her features, but Riven suspected she was scowling.

Familiar. So familiar.

Riven summoned her courage, the courage that served her so well on so many battlefields, and took a single, deliberate, step forward.

Katarina looked up.

Riven's breath caught in her throat.

Katarina gaped. "Riven?"

Riven wet her lips. "Katarina." She hesitated, then added, "My lady." It seemed right. It seemed respectful.

Katarina's jaw snapped shut and all the tension in her coiled tighter as she stood up straight. She reached for a knife sheathed on her belt. She gripped the hilt but she didn't draw.

It was an instinctive motion. Katarina always went for her knives when she felt strongly, the way some men reached for drink and others for women.

She was fury.

And she was beautiful.

In the moment, Riven couldn't remember why she'd come. And – and there was too much space. Riven could see Katarina's face, could see her green eyes, but she was too far away.

She needed to be closer.

Riven began to walk forward.

Katarina didn't move except to grip her blade tighter, her knuckles turning slightly as her force shifted.

The scar that bisected her eyebrow was a sharp, slightly discolored, line. Riven remembered running her fingers across that mark, feeling how it had healed raised and smooth – a clean cut, though a deep one. A mark of her strength. A mark of pride. Would it still feel the same? Had Katarina's scars aged as Riven's had? She wanted to know. She wanted to reach out and touch and hold and know.

She wanted – where had this wanting, stronger than anything she'd felt in her exile, come from?

Riven came to a stop a few feet away and then didn't move. What should she say? She'd thought so much of how she herself felt, but she'd barely considered Katarina's reaction. She should have. She hadn't anticipated, didn't know what to do, hardly-

A flash of light on steel was all the warning Riven had before she felt the edge of a knife on her throat just beneath her chin. She couldn't look down to see, but sharp and cold feeling of it made her think she'd been cut.

Slowly, Riven raised her empty hands. She wouldn't draw her blade. She wouldn't challenge Katarina's right to her anger.

Riven swallowed, briefly pushing the knife ever so slightly deeper into her own throat. When she spoke, her voice was soft and low. "Kat."

Without lowering her blade, Katarina took a step forward. Lips slightly parted, caught in a snarl, her teeth were clenched. Her green eyes burned.

Watching closely, Riven saw the shifting of muscle and had just enough warning to take a step back. She could hear her own heartbeat pounding in her ears. Every beat seemed faster than the one before. She knew Katarina. She knew Katarina wouldn't hurt her. She knew.

They were friends.

Katarina's response came broken, choked with rage. "You have no right to call me that." Every word was enunciated, slow, each one sharp and distinct.

Katarina took another step forward.

Riven took another step back and shifted a hand to take Katarina's wrist. She moved so that Katarina could see what she was doing. There was a knife between them. No room for sudden movements. Katarina didn't pull back.

Riven neither pressed her fingers into Katrina's skin nor did she push her away. She didn't want Katarina away from her, just – just under control.

Words. Riven was bad at words. Actions were easier, but there they both stood, frozen in place until Katarina made her move. What should Riven say? "I wanted to see you."

"If you'd wanted to see me, you'd have come two months ago," Katarina replied. Her eyes narrowed and her words came out as harsh as any Riven had ever heard from her. "You'd have come two years ago."

In Riven's grip, Katarina's whole arm jerked, straining forward, gaining ground before Riven could react. The knife cut deeper, still only a flesh wound, but a messy one now. The metallic smell of blood filled the air. Riven pushed, hard, enough to shove Katarina back and off balance. While Katarina stumbled, Riven let go and backed away. Now her hand moved for her sword.

A precaution.

"You let me think you were dead," Katarina hissed. Her knife remained drawn but she didn't advance. She continued, voice rising in pitch, "Two years."

"I'm here to see you now," Riven repeated. To her own ears, her tone was guarded, measured. All wrong. Not what she wanted to say. Not how she wanted to say it. She tried again. "I'm here for-

"You're a dog of High Command. You're here because Darius ordered you here," Katarina answered, volume continuing to rise.

"No," Riven said. A lie, maybe. Maybe a truth. Darius had ordered her, but she'd wanted to see Katarina. She knew this. She knew what she wanted.

And there Katarina stood before her.

Why had she wanted to see Katarina?

Why had she ever wanted to see Katarina?

Because -

Katarina moved fast and with intent. Riven only barely drew her sword in time to block the strike, aimed for her gut. Steel on stone rang out, a screeching noise that sent shivers down Riven's spine.

If it had hit, it could have been fatal, and -

Katarina had a knife in each hand now and she was moving at full speed, holding nothing back.

Riven answered, had to answer, with her own blade.

She-

Hadn't expected this.

Should have expected this.

Didn't want this.

Did want this?

Actions were easier than words.

The advantage Riven's short weapon conferred was the advantage of speed but, even so, Riven wasn't as fast as her opponent.

The only reason she wasn't dead beneath Katarina's furious onslaught was Katarina's wildness.

Calm, Katarina's style was controlled and deadly. Beautiful. From the unnecessary energy thrown into chaotic attacks, it was clear Katarina was anything but calm. Katarina's skill with her blades had doubled, tripled maybe, become even more fearsome over the years, but she suffered the same flaw that crippled her years before.

It was so familiar. Unchanged.

Riven let herself be pushed back. Some blows she parried. Most blows she dodged. Every moment she let her sword stay engaged with one of Katarina's knives was a moment she risked Katarina's second blade. With two weapons, Katarina was the more versatile fighter.

Riven grit her teeth as she retreated. Even pressed hard, her breath came fast but steady, in through her nose, out through her mouth. Katarina wasn't calm, so Riven had to be calm enough, had to have control enough, for the both of them.

She'd done it so many times before.

But this time was different. There was so much anger, too much anger.

Could she continue to defend herself?

Katarina was wasting too much in her attacks, she would tire long before Riven. There was no way she could sustain her assault much longer. But would she tire before she got a lucky strike? All it took was one. It wasn't an acceptable risk. And, as Riven retreated, she was running out of room. The hall was only so long.

With her short blade though, her options were limited. She needed some other advantage.

She was in a dining room. What was there for her?

Riven took a slightly longer and faster step back, breaking distance. Trusting her peripheral vision, she hooked her foot around the leg of one of the dark wooden chairs at the table, then kicked it forward.

Katarina reacted fast enough to sidestep the projectile, but her momentum was broken.

Riven took another step back. This time, she grabbed a chair with her free hand. Raising it like a shield, chair back over her head, legs pointed forward, she charged.

The tactic caught Katarina off guard.

When they collided, there was a crunch.

Riven wasn't sure if it was wood or Katarina's face.

She kept charging.

For a few steps, Katarina managed to back up enough to not be completely run over, but she couldn't back up as fast as Riven could run forward.

A knife stabbed through the seat of the chair, puncturing cushion, narrowly avoiding Riven's cheek.

Suddenly the chair felt heavier – Riven couldn't see Katarina's feet on the ground anymore – she'd gotten a grip in the chair and was holding herself up now.

One final shove sent the chair, and Katarina, hurtling forward.

Like a cat, Katarina landed on her feet, dropped in a crouch. She let out a grunt as she yanked her knife free of the chair's wood, then kicked the piece of furniture aside. There was bright blood freely running from her nose, enough to drip from her chin down to the floor.

Riven took a few steps back. She wanted more distance. She had no armor. If she tried to press her advantage, given Katarina's mood and style, they might both end up dead.

Unacceptable.

In a flash of steel, one of Katarina's knives came hurtling at her. Katarina had moved so fast Riven hadn't seen the throw. Reflexes, and the added distance she'd just taken, allowed her to dodge to the side. The air hummed at the knife's passing.

Riven reached for another chair and took several more steps back.

Down the hall from her, Katarina was wiping at the crimson mess that covered her mouth and chin with the back of her hand. It did nothing to halt or slow the steady stream of blood. In disgust, Katarina shook her hand, sending red droplets down to scatter on the stone floor. She drew another knife to replace the one she'd thrown.

Riven hefted the chair, holding it before her as a shield. She was already retreating. She had to buy time. Katarina's anger wouldn't, couldn't, burn forever. Soon, soon flames would give way to smoldering cinders. Even now, it seemed, she was calming.

And when Katarina's anger subsided, they could talk. They could try again. Riven could-

Katarina was rushing forward. One step, two steps, her long legs carried her across the room – and when she was nearly upon Riven, she leapt, up onto the table, then up, higher, spinning –

Trying to track her, Riven whirled about, expecting Katarina to land behind her. It took a bare fraction of a second to realize her mistake. Katarina wasn't landing behind her, she was landing on her.

Katarina's feet slammed into Riven's back and Riven hit the floor. Hard. She managed to let go of the chair and catch some of the fall with her free forearm. She saved her head, but the force of the impact on the stone floor, the pain lancing through her wrist, her arm, her elbow – something was broken. Forcing herself to keep moving, she immediately pushed up and back to rise onto her knees and throw Katarina off of her, but Katarina was already gone, far too skilled a fighter to stay to grapple with a stronger, shorter, opponent.

Half-way back up, a boot collided with Riven's ribs, knocking her back down.

Mind foggy with pain, a distant thought told Riven that she wasn't dead and that she easily could have been.

The world spun.

Katarina was speaking. She was saying something.

Wind knocked out of her, Riven struggled to find her breath again. There was blood dripping into one of her eyes. Not hers though. Katarina's blood. It must have splashed there. The world was steadying. Katarina was standing a few paces away. "What?" Riven murmured, saying the word but barely understanding it.

Katarina's voice dripped cold condescension and venom. "You're so weak."

Riven continued forcing the world to stay still around her.

She'd miscalculated.

Katarina had found control, but her anger hadn't lessened. She was as deadly as ever, as hungry as ever for violence, but without rage to hold her back.

"Too weak to keep your men alive. Too weak to come home."

Trying to protect her broken arm, Riven used her other side to push herself up again.

Another kick caught her full in the stomach. Her entire body rose up, then collapsed back to the floor. Bile surged up her throat. She choked. Spittle dripped from her lips.

"And now you're back."

Staying calm wasn't working. Waiting Katarina out wasn't working. Too much anger.

She was stuck on the floor.

Getting kicked.

She had to try something else.

Riven forced herself to look up, to look at Katarina.

She needed something-

Katarina was crouching over her. Sneering. She held her knives still, but her grip was relaxed.

"Pathetic."

Who was Katarina to call her weak?

Who was Katarina to judge her?

Who was Katarina to hurt her?

No one.

Riven half-rolled, half-lunged forward, slamming her forehead into Katarina's knee.

With a yelp of surprised pain, Katarina went tumbling backwards, giving Riven the opening she needed to stagger back up to her feet even as Katarina scuttled away and stood up herself.

Riven didn't need long legs, she was on Katarina in a second, broken sword swinging with abandon. Every movement jostled Riven's broken arm, sending agony screaming through her, but that pain only fueled her assault.

She needed – she needed to make Katarina understand.

Now Katarina was on the defensive. Her speed did little for her when she had to use all her strength to keep Riven from smashing through her parries.

Together, they were a flurry of steel and blood, raging down the great hall in a mess of chaos.

Now it was Riven's time to be fury.

Years.

Years she'd spent in exile, wasting away, losing what was left of herself. Forgotten. And now to come back, half-groveling, ready to endure all Katarina's selfish anger and childish violence because Katarina expected it, demanded it.

No.

Riven brought her blade crashing down over and over again. Katarina had to parry every strike. With every blow though, her guard weakened, giving more way each time. With every blow, Riven came closer and closer to splitting Katarina in two.

"Why can't you hit me, Riven?"

If she had a clearer state of mind, Riven would have heard the sharp panic in Katarina's voice.

"Too weak?"

If she had a clearer state of mind, Riven would have heard the trap.

"You're-

Riven saw the slightest hint of an opening and she lunged for it.

Katarina's foot whipped out, catching Riven at the ankles and tripping her.

Riven fell.

Steel, the tip of a knife, then the entire blade up to the hilt, rammed into her stomach.

Riven tried to catch herself, couldn't, only barely managed to twist to the side and avoid falling onto the knife and shoving it deeper.

All she could see were the legs of chairs at the table.

Shock.

She was going into shock.

Somewhere far away, Katarina was screaming. "Cass! Talon! Cass!"

Katarina.

Riven tried to shove the pain to the back of her mind, tried to make her mouth work. "Kat?"

Katarina's face came into view – blurry, everything going dark. "Riven?"

Katarina was still talking. Saying something. Didn't matter. Not important.

Riven wanted to talk now. Was important. Very important.

Mouth wasn't though. Not working.

Strong. Riven was strong.

World getting darker-

Had to-


	6. Chapter 6

_Riven's heavy boots crunch through the embers of the burnt out camp – embers still smoldering, still clinging to life with the same futile tenacity as the Ionian people._

_The bodies lie stacked in a pile, each one stripped of armor, trinkets, anything of value._

_In time, those bodies too will be embers. Zaun would have Fury Company leave them to rot. But those bodies belonged to soldiers, once. They will burn._

_Lost in thoughts of the dead, Riven doesn't keep an eye to the ground. Her toe hits something heavier than ash. She pauses and looks down._

_It's a knife._

_The Ionian blade is naked and flecks of blood stain the bright steel._

_On a whim, Riven bends down and picks it up._

_The craftsmanship is exquisite. The balance is perfect. The hilt is worked leather, dyed a fierce red. Riven doesn't have to touch the edge to know it could split a hair. Some sort of colored stone – lustrous green - sits embedded in the pommel. And the steel – the steel is half the reason she's in Ionia, half the reason Noxus is in Ionia. The steel reflects the embers around them._

_Like so many Ionian weapons, it has both form and function and it sacrifices nothing for either._

_There's a partially intact tent collapsed some distance away. Riven goes there, cuts a strip of canvas free, wipes away the blood, wraps the blade in a makeshift sheathe._

_She's taken a liking to knives._

_A day later, Riven uses that same knife to put a child to mercy. There's not much room to swing her sword in the cramped hut, the smallest dwelling in the wreck of the village._

_She takes no particular pleasure in the work. It takes no strength to cut the throat of a child. There are a thousand and one things she'd rather do. But nothing which she tasks her men to carry out is beneath her, so she kills the girl and moves on. Better to go by steel than by fire._

_When Fury Company marches, covering ground already pockmarked by Zaunite explosions, they leave only flames behind them._

_Those are their orders._

_The orders sit well with no one. They are elite soldiers one and all. They were raised in battle by the army on the western front, living out lives governed by the ebb and flow of the Demacian war. The Ionian front is something alien to them._

_Their food stores rot quickly in these far eastern jungles and the forage is poison. Bugs bite at exposed flesh, leaving welts, spreading sickness. When the enemy comes, they come in ambush. There have been few pitched battles. The Zaunites melt the Ionian camps whenever they form in number, leaving nothing but grim bands of acid-burnt survivors for the Noxians to fight in the dead of night._

_The Ionians who choose to fight acquit themselves well. The Ionians who choose to bow their heads – their acquiescence disgusts Riven as much as the dirty job of putting them out of their misery._

_There's no glory in butchering sheep._

_That is the thought echoing in Riven's head when Fury Company comes upon Coeur Valley, gripped by early morning fog._

_They've been marching at double time for two days now, trying to catch up to the 42nd Standard. They'd been delayed by a group of holdouts in a temple the Zaunite melters had missed._

_Couer Valley is a mess. Fury Company is close on the heels of the 42nd now, perhaps only a day behind. The bodies rotting in the field are still fresh. The carrion birds have only just started to pick at their meals. In the wet heat of northern Shon-Xan, the stench is nearly unbearable._

_Riven grits her teeth. The 42nd Standard is a mixed battle group. They have Zaunites and Noxians both. The Noxians should have burned the bodies, even if the Zaunites didn't care. The disrespect for the dead is haunting. Along the valley floor, Noxian and Ionian dead alike have been left to the sun and the beasts._

_At least, Riven thinks, there are far more Ionian dead than Noxian. Two to one, at least._

_If Fury Company were to fall, would their bodies be left for the scavengers as well?_

_To the hells with catching up – Riven opens her mouth to order her men to stop and tend to the dead – but then she hears approaching footsteps. Survivors? Whose? She raises her sword, a silent signal to halt and to prepare for battle._

_It's a girl. No, it's a woman, hollowed by hunger and strife. She could be Riven's age, but suffering has aged her. She's not wearing a Noxian uniform. She's an Ionian then, wearing bloody rags._

_When she sees Fury Company, she falls to her knees._

_She's come all this way, endured so much._

_Riven would sigh, but such a thing is not befitting her command. She orders two men near her to go take care of the survivor. The rest of the company remains alert. There's too much fog here to let their guard down._

_The men Riven sent to take care of the woman have reached her, but they're hesitating._

_They're tired of killing civilians. Riven is tired of killing civilians. The entire company is tired of Ionia._

_They want to go home. They want to return to families, to loved ones. Even Riven, when she closes her eyes, thinks of a happier future and a happier past. She is an old hand with at least a dozen campaigns under her belt. She has spent more of her life in the field than in the city, yet Riven has never desired so keenly to return to Noxus, never sheltered such hope that Noxus will be as she left it. In the short Ionian nights, Riven rests a hand on her sword, feels its steady pulse of strength, almost alive, and she thinks of better things._

_Riven starts forward – she is the commander. If her men falter, it is her duty to bolster them and to ensure their work is done if need be. With her free hand, she reaches for her knife. Knives are simpler to clean._

_She's taken two steps when the woman makes a sudden gesture. There's a thin red mist and Riven's two men are dead._

_Riven is shouting the ambush before she has even fully processed what must have happened. A single gesture and a red mist. The woman is a sorcerer of some sort. This was planned and planned well._

_All around Fury Company, dead Ionians are getting up._

_Riven's sense of the battle tells her they're substantially outnumbered._

_Riven is shouting for the company to form up defensively, but it's useless. The entire rear guard is already cut off from the rest of the company._

_And Fury Company – Fury Company was the rear guard of the 42nd Standard._

_There's a distress flare on Riven's belt. Every officer has one. She's never used hers before. Does she remember how it works?_

_Riven yanks the flare free and pulls the pin with her teeth before hurling it up towards the sky. The flare hits the apex of its arc, then begins to descend before something catches and it bursts into a bright emerald streak of fire, exploding upwards and casting the entire foggy valley in a pale green light._

_Riven has seen the distress flares before, but always from a distance. No company she has ever marched with has used one._

_There's no time to admire the firework._

_An Ionian charges her. Riven shifts her stance, curves a blow angled upwards to split him in two. There's such power in her strike that she hardly feels the resistance of bone as it's shattered by her stone runeblade. Blood splatters grossly, gore spills, and the unmistakable stench of breached bowels joins the general noxious air of rotting corpses._

_Riven cuts down two more Ionians before she's forced to take a step, then another step, in retreat. Around her, her men do the same. They stand back to back, defending themselves. Less than half the company remain._

_The Ionians circle._

_How long did they wait among the dead?_

_Riven continues to fight. The strong survive. Only the strong survive. She is strong. She will survive._

_There's a wash of heat, the air screams. Light. Blinding light. An explosion. Blood-soaked earth, blasted limbs, broken and twisted weapons – it's all a jumble, blown outwards, knocking men nearby down._

_The battle pauses for a split second as Ionians and Noxians alike find their balance._

_A metallic reek fills the air, smothering the ever-present stench of tropical rot._

_Another explosion follows, then another, then another. One hits Fury Company's embattled rear guard and then they're gone - all gone, pieces of them blasted through the air, splattering into their comrades and enemies._

_Riven should shout a retreat, should give some order, should do something, but in that moment she is frozen. What order can she give that could save her men?_

_Vast pools of yellow-green slime seep out of the spent missiles. The valley fog tints yellow as well and when Riven inhales, it burns._

_Her skin burns, her eyes burn, her lungs are on fire._

_All around her, men are screaming._

_She's screaming too._

_She shuts her eyes against the acid fog but it's too late the inside of her skull feels like it's melting. The screams fade away because all she can hear is her ears burning with the rest of her._

_She staggers, trying to resist the urge to fall and to curl into the fetal position, the only defense she might muster against the gas._

_She can't fall. If she falls, she'll die._

_Blind, she stumbles forward. She has to get out. She has to get away. She clings to her sword, keeps on her path, prays to the Old Gods whose faith she's never kept before._

_Every breath is agony._

_Every step she thinks she might collapse._

_With her eyes shut, Riven still sees the flashes of light against the backs of her eyelids as more and more Zaunite missiles explode across the battlefield._

_She trips, probably over a corpse._

_She crawls forward._

_She's crawling through the acid, it splashes up, eats at exposed flesh._

_She has to get out._

_The strong survive._

_No one is strong before the melters. No one survives against Zaun._

_Not even Noxus._

_Riven is strong and it means nothing._

_The acid has eaten most of the way through her gauntlet and as she pulls herself forward, her hand is bathed in the stuff._

_Even if she makes it clear of the field, she will be broken. She will look across the field and see no survivors, just corpses of the men she's failed. She will not have the strength to find the 42nd Standard. She will lie at the edge of the valley floor, too weak to stand, too weak to heal, too weak to live. Scavengers will pick at her body even as she still draws breath. And when she dies, no one will burn her body._

_She should give up. She should let herself fall, stay in the acid, take the quicker death._

_But she doesn't._

_Riven continues to crawl._

_Her eyes are closed and her world is dark save for infrequent bursts of melter-fire._

_She will survive._

_Not because she is strong, but because she has something to live for._

_Even when Riven has gone far enough from the field that the burning has begun to fade, it's a long time before she dares open her eyes. Will she still be able to see?_

_Yes._

_She still sees. She sees what has become of her company, of herself._

_The field is filled with twisted corpses. Arms and armor have been melted down into pools of silvery metal. The ground is an awful yellow. There's no trace of grass, of shrubs, of any vegetation remaining. It's all been burnt away._

_And Riven – her left hand is a bloody, burnt, mess. Her armor saved her. It's scraps now, mostly melted away, but it bought her enough time to crawl free of the conflagration. Her eyes still sting. Her lungs still feel like she's breathing in fire._

_Riven rests her good hand on the hilt of her sword, searching for its comforting pulse of strength._

_The blade is dead. It is cold stone._

_Acid has left her sword covered in deep pockmarks and scores, distorting the runes. Some of the scars reach so deep they go almost clean through the weapon._

_Riven exhales, a sigh that turns into a fit of coughing, each cough throwing out flecks of blood._

_It takes a long time for the coughing to subside._

_When it does, with a trembling hand, Riven reaches towards her belt._

_The knife is gone._

[ ]

[ ]

[ ]

Intense pain shot through every fiber of Riven's being, to the point she didn't know where she ended and the rest of existence began because everything was pure, undifferentiated fire. She was burning. All of her was burning.

If she moved, if she thrashed, she wasn't aware of it. The pain swallowed any self-awareness and replaced it with white.

Visions – hallucinations – danced through the white, images, the memory of acid on her skin, in her lungs, melting through heavy plate armor as she dragged herself through the bloody mud of the Ionian valley. The memory of screaming men being drowned out by toxic casks screaming through the air.

Air.

She needed air. She needed to breathe.

A great, shuddering gasp racked Riven's body, a giant gulp of cool air.

Cool air. Not the inferno of Couer. She wasn't there. She was…

Riven's eyes shot open. A ceiling swam into view. She was lying on her back.

There were no flames. There was no acid. She hurt, unbelievably so, but she was not burning.

Sense came slowly, fighting its way through the gripping tides of pain. It took what felt like an hour and every ounce of will that Riven could muster to turn her head to the side so that she could see something other than the ceiling. It happened in one great spasmodic twitch, aided by gravity.

She was in a room. She was on a bed. She couldn't feel the bed under her. All she could feel was the fire eating her from the inside.

Time passed. The fire did not diminish.

Sounds, a voice from somewhere distant registered.

"… an accident?" The voice was a man's, loud, angry. Riven wrapped her mind around it, the only thing she had that wasn't pain or the memory of pain. She focused on listening alone, used that focus to drown out the awful sensations pulsing through her body with what she heard. "What do you mean an accident?"

If there was another half of the conversation, it was too low for Riven to hear.

The man – Riven had heard his voice before. Recently. Where? "Bullshit. No such thing as an accidental Du Couteau stabbing."

Draven. The voice was Draven's.

And if he was yelling at…

Riven squeezed her eyes shut as another wave of agony crashed into her.

Her breathing was laborious, every inhalation a struggle. The noise of it filled her head.

She strained, listening, trying to hear something aside from her own wheezing.

The conversation had gone silent.

A distant, dry part of Riven's mind remarked that Draven had probably just been stabbed and it probably had not been an accident.

Katarina.

Heartbeat by heartbeat, Riven's memories pieced themselves together.

The knife in her gut. Hitting the floor. A blurry face, almost featureless save for green eyes framed by red hair.

Outside the room, Draven spoke again, still loud but now with an edge of petulance. "Fine. Whatever. I'm here because bro said bring her home."

The conversation had drawn close now and Riven heard the other speaker.

Katarina.

"That's not possible."

Draven wasn't the sharpest sword in the armory and he didn't take well to whetstones. "Like hell it-

"It's not possible," Katarina repeated curtly. "We used poison to slow the bleeding and then packed and bandaged the wound. It was deep. She can't be moved."

"Poison?" Draven's tone was incredulous. "They make elixirs for that."

"I panicked," Katarina replied sullenly.

Poison.

That explained the pain and possibly the apparent paralysis.

There was a click, a door's latch moving.

Riven struggled to open her eyes again. She needed to see. A blurred world came into view, dominated by the crimson bedsheet. Lying as she was, Riven saw only a sliver of the rest of the room.

Draven's voice was suddenly much, much louder. "What the hell did you do to her?"

Riven strained, trying to move her neck, trying to crane to see the two. For all that she tried, she only managed a weak twitch. Her sense of herself, the threads that connected Riven to her body, were frayed and broken.

"I told you," Katarina said sharply. "It was an accident."

Riven kept straining. She needed to see.

"You want me to go back to High Command and tell them she tripped and fell on a candlestick? No can do." Draven stepped into Riven's view. Instead of the strange assortment of leather straps and strips of colorful cloth, he was in a Noxian military uniform. The pins at his collar identified him as a lieutenant – a commission that held some amount of respect but no amount of authority.

Draven bent down, bringing his face near Riven's. He waved a hand in front of her. "You in there?"

In response, Riven managed a weak groan, so weak it was more a barely audible exhalation than a groan.

"You will go back to High Command and you will tell them it was a training accident." A new voice, a new speaker. Female. The other Du Couteau – Cassiopeia. Had she always lisped?

Draven stood up again. Watching him move left Riven dizzy. She had yet to manage moving her head. She gave up and closed her eyes. It took all her concentration just to follow what was being said.

Cassiopeia continued, "You will tell them Katarina and the commander decided to spar, for old time's sake. They both tried to show off and this is what happens to those who were never blessed with an abundance of common sense. You'll tell them that the commander, who is recovering well, confirmed this."

"Cassie, she looks half dead," Draven fired back. "If they find out you tried to kill an officer, they'll pull this house down around your ears. They're looking for an excuse. And this'll look like shit to the people still protecting you."

"It was an accident," Katarina said, again.

"Draven," Cassiopeia said. "There Riven is. Alive. Do you believe that Katarina tried to kill her?"

Draven scoffed. "Nah. Your sis doesn't do halvsies."

"So go back to your brother and tell him what happened," Cassiopeia said calmly. "The first time you say it, he'll act like he doesn't believe you. When he presses you, you will admit that you never spoke to the commander alone because Katarina was already in the room when you arrived and refused to leave." Cassiopeia paused, making a thoughtful noise to maintain her hold on the conversation. "Embellish. Complain that she suggested you do something anatomically impossible when you told her to leave."

"Something anatomically impossible?" Draven asked.

"Use your imagination," Cassiopeia replied. "You're a very bright man when you choose to be, Draven. And this is a story that Darius will want to believe."

"If he finds out I lied to cover your ass-

Cassiopeia cut Draven off. "That man would cut off his own right hand before letting any harm come to you. Pity for you both that you can't see that."

Draven's scowl was evident in his tone. "Cassie. You don't know my bro like I know my bro."

"I know him better," Cassiopeia stated.

"Fine," Draven said. "I'll talk to him. But what about Riven? Is she going to be okay? You stabbed her."

"It was," Katarina said, "An accident."

"We will care for Riven," Cassiopeia said. "And Darius will have to accept that. She can't be moved."

Draven's sigh was pure frustration. "Fine, fine. I'll go. You two owe me, big time."

Riven heard heavy footsteps again, headed away. Draven was leaving.

"You know we take care of our debts," Cassiopeia said. Her voice too was growing more distant.

The room went silent.

Without opening her eyes, Riven parted her lips, just barely. "Kat?"

The word hung in the air, an almost tangible presence.

Heartbeats passed.

There was the slightest creak of leather, a few nearly inaudible footfalls, receding.

Then, again, silence.


	7. Chapter 7

For a long time, Riven drifted in and out of unconsciousness. For the most part though, the world was nothing. She was nothing.

It was better that way.

Consciousness was pain and confusion and fear of – of things her sluggish mind couldn't quite grasp. Shadows. Memories that twisted round and round until they might have been nightmares of things that had never come to pass.

She continued to burn.

But it was fading.

The fire retreated first from her extremities. Her fingers, her toes, then her hands and feet, then arms and legs subsided to the sensation of a living, functioning, body. The poison was running its course.

When Riven finally felt as if she were herself once more, she opened her eyes again. The ceiling above her hadn't changed in the least since before. She was still in the same place then, lying atop a bed in a guest room.

Riven closed her eyes once more.

The last thing she remembered was Katarina.

Katarina, leaving.

Could she have expected anything else from the woman who'd stabbed-

"Riven?"

Riven's eyes shot open and she turned her head towards her name.

Katarina sat beside the bed in an armchair, leaning forward slightly. Though her expression was unreadable, she looked generally like Riven felt. Her green eyes were bloodshot and there were dark bags beneath them, as if she hadn't slept in a week. Her nose was badly swollen.

Riven's chair had broken Katarina's nose. Good.

Like the day before - days before? Riven was hungry enough it might have been days - Katarina wore black leather, too plain to be the clothes of an aristocrat but too well-made to be anything else. Her long red hair was tied back in a messy ponytail. Her hair was visibly greasy. When was the last time she'd washed it? At her sides were knives, practical steel pommels, hilts wrapped in dark leather. She doubtless had more knives, a small armory of them about her person, all kept obsessively sharp, all deadly...

Riven's abdomen burst into pain and she smelled blood, her blood, thick and metallic. She looked up at Katarina's face. Every emotion she hadn't felt in all those long years hit her along with the shock, the utter helplessness, the certain knowledge that she was dying, the choking despair of betrayal as oppressive as the Melter's fire in Couer. Yellow acid fog, burning. Screaming all around her. Her friends, dying.

With a great effort of will, Riven ripped herself out of the memory.

She was again lying on the bed.

Katarina had gotten up from her chair and was standing beside the bed, leaning over it, face hovering near to Riven's. Her brow was creased with worry. She was close enough that Riven could see the beginnings of wrinkles on her face. That didn't seem right. Riven had always guessed she was the older between them. "Riven?" Katarina asked again.

Riven pressed her lips together. She looked away, back up towards the ceiling and she fixed her gaze at a dark knot in one of the timbers above. In the corner of her eye, she saw Katarina lean back.

In the army, there was a name for it. For remembering and then getting stuck. For seeing ghosts. For smelling blood and fire and choking on ash when the air was clean. For blindness that took men and left them a quarter mile from where they'd been with no knowledge of how they'd arrived there.

For Riven, it had been a faithful companion in the days after Couer. For the weeks after Couer. For the months after Couer. But as the months turned to years, it had faded. The sharp pain of the memory dulled to an ache and the smell of fire and the screams of men lost their seizing grip.

The name of it was whispered among recruits. Old soldiers, soldiers like Riven, never gave voice to it. If you named it, it would come. And if you admitted to it… that was weakness.

She wasn't going to name it. Not for Katarina.

Riven plucked at the bedsheet and rubbed it between her fingers. Smooth, cool. It was black silk of the finest quality. The Du Couteau would use nothing less, even for guests. Above her, the ceiling was dark wood and white plaster. Again, it was a mark of wealth. A lesser house would have crude, unvarnished timbers. The feel of the silk, the grain of the wood beams of the ceiling, focusing on her senses and only her senses, it kept Riven… grounded.

Riven felt the brush of fingertips on her bare shoulder, light and hesitant. The touch of a ghost more than a person.

Riven turned her head back towards Katarina.

Bloodshot though they were, Katarina's eyes were green. In another life, Katarina had asked what the world would look like if her eyes were red like Riven's. Riven remembered the answer she'd given. 'Your eyes are green,' she'd said, because Katarina was, ever, always, forever, nothing more and nothing less than herself.

But that was another life.

Having only attempted the suggestion of a touch rather than the substance, Katarina withdrew her hand. Her brow was still furrowed. The corners of her lips were tight, as if caught at the beginning of a frown.

Riven her head to the other side, the side away from Katarina.

The guest room was at least four times as large as an officer's quarters in a barracks. It had a desk and a chair, both of well-worked wood. There was a small couch for receiving visitors. The black fabric back of the couch was embroidered with the crossed knives of the Du Couteau arms. Most things in the manor were marked with the same symbol. The floor was wood, suggesting that the room was located on some upper story of the manor. A few feet from the bed was a medium sized locker, about three feet long and two feet high, bound in black leather and embossed with the emblem of the army surgeons.

This was not the first time Riven had been in a Du Couteau guest room.

The first time, the only other time, Riven had stayed at the manor, she'd done so at Katarina's invitation.

It had been… a long time ago.

She'd left as the sun rose, long before Katarina woke. She'd left a badly written note with – ah, that was why the hooded man from the day before had seemed familiar. She'd met him as she left, as he was just returning from what had looked like a long night, and she'd given the note to him. The memory was so distant, so inconsequential, Riven couldn't recall what she'd written.

Much of her time in the Du Couteau house, it seemed, had been inconsequential.

It was time, once more, to leave.

Riven pushed herself up into a sitting position.

"What are you doing?" Katarina asked. Like her touch, her voice was dogged with uncertainty.

Every muscle in Riven's body, all the muscles she knew and some she only ever remembered existed after a particularly gruelling day of training, they were all stiff to the point of dull pain.

Turning towards Katarina, Riven wet her lips and swallowed, ensuring her voice was about her before she spoke. When she did speak, her tone was flat. "I'm going," she said.

Katarina looked as though she would protest, but until she did - Riven would not wait for her.

Forcing herself to move as if she felt no pain at all, she swung her legs out so that she was sitting on the edge of the bed. It was then that she noticed that, while she still wore her blood-caked trousers, her shirt was gone. Even without a shirt though, her entire front was bloody fabric. Her cloth chest bindings were rust-red and so were the formerly white bandages wrapped around her abdomen.

Rust-red was good. Old blood meant a wound that was closed. Bright red would indicate a wound had reopened.

Gingerly, Riven lowered her feet to the floor, easing her weight onto them instead of going all at once. She was mulish, but she'd been hurt enough times in her life that she knew when not to rush. She was almost finished standing up when Katarina finally interrupted.

"Stop." It was a command, spoken not with the authority of a commander but with that air of arrogance only the old nobility could muster. Unlike her previous words, this one had no trace of doubt in it.

Following habit she'd thought erased years ago, Riven stopped. She looked up from her feet, up to meet Katarina's green eyes with her amber ones.

Why had she stopped?

In Riven's chest, the fire of anger kindled again, flaring up from cinders. Katarina had no authority over her. Katarina had no claim on her. At her sides, Riven's hands clenched into fists, balling up some of the silk sheet in the process, squeezing tightly. Pushing off from her fists, Riven made it the rest of the way up onto her feet. If Katarina wanted her to stop, she'd have to make her stop with more than just arrogance.

Riven looked away from Katarina's face and towards the door. Though the Du Couteau guest rooms were lavishly sized, from the bedside to the door wasn't that far, maybe four yards, give or take a foot. Distantly, she hoped that she would not reopen her wound. So long as she didn't make any sudden and sharp movements, she hoped it would stay closed. But that concern was secondary to her first objective, leaving.

Riven took one painful step followed by another. She went towards the door. She went away from Katarina.

She would leave and she would go back to High Command -

A hand wrapped around Riven's wrist, grip strong but not painfully so. "Riven, stop," Katarina said. This time, finally, her voice had a dull edge to it, the suggestion that if pressed, she might stir.

Still moving carefully out of respect for her injury, Riven turned to face Katarina again. When she pulled her hand back, Katarina let go. Pressing down on her fury as much as she could, Riven succeeded in keeping her tone even. "Why?"

"I…" Katarina started. She faltered, then changed tactic. "You're not healed," she said. "Your wound…"

"Your wound," Riven corrected acerbically. "Your knife. My lady."

Katarina flinched. As she flinched, she seemed to recede, to draw in on herself. Her eyes found something utterly captivating on the floor near Riven's feet. "It… it was an accident," she stammered. "I didn't mean to…"

"You didn't mean to kill me," Riven said, cold anger infusing every word. "You only meant to hurt me."

Katarina did not look up.

Riven didn't need her confirmation. She'd wanted to hurt Katarina. She remembered the explosion of rage, of frenzy, that had guided her blade. She remembered the overwhelming need to make Katarina understand, the conviction that making Katarina bleed would do just that, that only making Katarina bleed could do it. And, in truth, she could still feel that fury simmering in her.

It screamed at her to lash out. It wanted her right hand, already balled up in a fist, to swing and catch Katarina in the jaw, send her sprawling on the floor, hit too hard even to catch her fall. In her head, she heard the crack of a broken bone, saw blood splatter.

It was better that she go.

"If you're going to stop me, then stop me," Riven said. "I'm leaving."

Still, Katarina didn't up. Still, Katarina said nothing.

Riven turned, glacially. Did she think Katarina would try again? Was she already preparing to stop herself and argue? No. She was going carefully because her body felt like cold lead, because sudden movement might undo what healing had been done to her.

With slow conviction, Riven began to walk once more towards the door. She crossed the four yards, and in all that time, still, Katarina said nothing.

Riven's hand was on the latch of the door when she looked back.

Katarina was sitting on the edge of the bed now, head in her hands, watching. When she saw Riven look towards her, she dropped her gaze immediately.

But then she raised her head once more and caught Riven's gaze with her own. She stood again.

"Don't go," Katarina said.

Now it was Riven's turn to say nothing.

"I don't want you to go," Katarina said.

The weight in Riven's chest must have been rage because she knew of no other emotion so intense. "Why?" she demanded. If her voice was loud, it was because of the distance between them. "My lady."

Katarina took a breath so deep her entire body rose and fell. Her tone was strained. "I told you. You're hurt."

"That," Riven said, "is none of your concern."

Katarina took one step forward, then another, then stopped. In those two steps, somehow, she found her spine. Her eyes seemed to bore into Riven with their intensity. "I want you to stay."

Riven looked away from Katarina. Her voice was steel. "I don't care." She opened the door. The latch made a soft click but the hinges, well oiled, moved noiselessly. She stepped out into the empty and dim hallway, onto a thick crimson carpet. In the hall, all along the walls, were portraits, trophies, tapestries, all the trappings of the gross wealth Katarina had spent her entire life ensconced in.

"Do you know how long I hoped you were alive?" Katarina asked. She'd stopped in the middle of the room. "At least a year," she said. "At least a year I spent thinking that the report was wrong. I kept hoping it was wrong. I kept thinking I would wake up and you'd be here. You'd be home. Every day. I left High Command. For you."

Riven hesitated. The year after Couer, she'd thought of Katarina, sometimes constantly. Because… she'd had her reasons. But then…

"Look at me," Katarina snapped.

Riven turned, looked at Katarina, met her eyes.

"But then I started to forget you," Katarina continued. "It hurt less. It was better that way. And then you came back. You were dead, but you came back. And you went straight back to High Command, the people who sent you to Ionia, and you came here because they ordered it. And now we're here. And I say I want you to stay and you don't care."

Riven swallowed hard. Guilt sapped her anger, though not fully.

So her words had hurt Katarina? They'd done what her sword couldn't? Fine. Good. She'd achieved her objective.

So what was this damn guilt?

"You don't get to do this," Riven said slowly. "My lady." Riven took a sharp breath, demanding of herself that she control her tone. Her eyes stung. She blinked a few times. "You don't," she started, paused, then, "You don't get to stab me and then pretend I meant anything to you."

"What do you want, Riven?" Katarina snarled.

"I want," Riven started.

She wanted to leave.

She wanted to return to High Command.

And once she was there… Would even Darius take her back? Failure was a sign of weakness. She'd lost her men. She'd lost her sword. She'd been given a second chance, an undeserved second chance, and Katarina had stabbed her. In the intervening years, Riven had withered and Katarina had excelled. Years, wasted. Years wasted working the docks and the ships of Bilgewater and dreaming of a home that wasn't her home, not since Couer.

Riven's answer came as a shout. "I want my life back."

Katarina's tone had become sharp, dangerous. "And you think you'll find it at the top of the mountain, right where you left it?" She was crossing the room now, advancing step by step. "You think Darius has snapped his fingers and put things to rights? Darius doesn't pull strings, he is a string. And you're… as delusional as his brother if you think otherwise."

Though Riven kept herself from shouting again, her voice broke. "You have your mansion," she said. "You have your knives and your money and your family. I have High Command. I don't… have… anything else."

"Fine," Katarina said. "Go." She'd reached the doorway now, and she'd paused there. They were barely two feet apart.

Riven blinked. She'd expected Katarina to continue to fight, not… acquiesce.

"Scurry back to the only thing you have. Go right, then take the stairs down two flights to reach the dining room," Katarina bit out. "Don't bother looking back. This time, I won't wait."

Katarina shoved past Riven to get out of the room.

As Katarina passed, RIven felt something in her abdomen tear. It hurt, very much so, but not enough to make her think her wound had completely reopened. A stitch, maybe two, had ripped. Riven said nothing of it and made no move to show anything had happened. She watched as Katarina stormed away, incandescent rage seeming to light the dimly lit hallway around her.

Only when Katarina had gone entirely did Riven touch her stomach tentatively, feeling if the crusty bandages were still dry. They weren't, her fingertips came away stained crimson, but she thought that it wasn't such a serious thing.

She grit her teeth and turned right. She could see a staircase at the end of the hall, just as Katarina had said.

Every step seemed to hurt slightly more.

It was concerning. But she had an objective. She was marching. She set the pain aside.

Down one flight of stairs she went, and then another. The door at the bottom of the stairs opened about halfway down the length of the grand dining room.

Riven ignored the massive mess of dried blood coating the stone floor, resolutely walking through it. Through it was the fastest path to leaving the manor. She ignored also the splinters of broken chairs, the smashed china, the scattered place settings. The orderliness of the Du Couteau household was none of her concern.

She went down the hall from the dining room, back out to the entrance hall, and then out the front door.

It was only standing on the steps of the manor, door closed behind her, that Riven paused again to consider her condition. Her formerly crusty bandage was now soaking. Behind her, on the steps leading back up the door, droplets of bright blood showed the path she'd taken.

Riven let out a soldier's curse.

The pain radiating from her stomach could now properly be called searing agony. If she'd been leaking blood all the way from… probably the staircase, at least, the chances of her arriving back at High Command with her own strength were slim.

And worst of all, there was the voice in the back of her head - Katarina had been right. She shouldn't have tried to… but Katarina was the one who'd shoved past her, was the one who'd stabbed her.

Riven snarled and forced herself to keep moving.

She had survived Couer. She would survive Katarina.

One step. Two steps. Three steps - Riven faltered but managed to catch herself. The shock of the movement though sent a fresh wave of pain through her gut.

Pain… Pain was a signal to tell a soldier something was wrong. Nothing more, nothing less. To be stopped by something so… insignificant.

Teetering, Riven staggered along the side of the paved street. If people stared, she didn't notice. Her eyes were fixed on the ground, watching her step. If she tripped, she would likely fall.

And why would anyone stare? Because she was bleeding out? Though she was high on the mountain, Noxus above the clouds was Noxus as surely as the slums below. She had nothing of value for scavengers to take if she collapsed.

She had -

Her sword. Where was her sword?

"Hey!" someone shouted. It sounded like a man and the voice sounded familiar.

Riven looked up.

There was indeed a man, gaudily dressed, with a comical mustache. Her brow furrowed. "Draven?"

"Riven, what are you doing up?" Draven asked. "Hey, you're bleeding!"

"I…" Riven started. And then she blacked out.


	8. Unearthed: Chapter 8

When Riven woke again, there was an unfamiliar man standing over her. He was older, past his prime by a decade or more, and wearing the red robe of a medical summoner. His eyes were shut and his hands, wreathed in a warm blue-green glow, hovered over her bare abdomen. Her bloody bandages and chest wrap had been cut away, baring the massive scar that ran from her collarbone to hip – a memento from her fight with Darius years ago.

The last thing Riven remembered was… it was the street, and she'd been bleeding, and Draven had been there.

"How-

"Not a word, girl. You've done quite enough," the summoner snapped. Without opening his eyes, he addressed a runner, uniformed in brown, standing by the door of the room. "Go on upstairs and tell that brute she's awake."

Riven frowned but didn't say anything. She was a soldier. She knew better than to argue with medics. And this medic – he seemed familiar. Did she know him from somewhere?

As Riven waited for the memory to find its way back to her, she examined her surroundings as best she could from her position lying down on a hard cot.

Her first priority was her sword. She didn't see it, but she felt it – she couldn't say how exactly. It was lying on the cot next to her. Maybe she felt its weight pressing into the bed and that was how she knew it was there.

Satisfied that her runeblade was with her, Riven moved on to looking at the rest of the room. She seemed to be in some sort of infirmary, but it wasn't one she recognized. There were a few other beds aside from the one she occupied, but they were empty and there were no other medics present. So this wasn't the sort of place that men stayed long. Like the infirmary near the training rooms of High Command, this place was intended to address injuries, not disease.

It reminded her of the ward she'd awoken in after her fight in the arena.

Ah.

That was where she knew the man from.

He'd aged since she last saw him.

Riven closed her eyes.

There was a warm feeling in her gut – an unnatural movement that itched and burned.

Riven did her best to ignore it.

The medic had aged. Of course he had, it had been years since she'd last seen him. She'd aged too.

Lying on the bed in the infirmary, she felt… tired. She felt tired and spent. And stupid.

The mistakes she'd made since returning to Noxus seemed innumerable. Lying nearly motionless on the bed with her eyes closed as the medic reknit her body, Riven attempted to number them anyway.

In the first instance, she'd returned thinking only of Noxus. Of home. Perhaps she'd thought that merely standing again on the dock she'd departed from would fill up that strange, empty hole within her. In any case, it hadn't. So she'd gone back to what she knew. Because Riven was ever strong. And in Noxus, in a pure Noxus, in Swain's Noxus, the strong survive and they rise. Perhaps she'd thought to rise, again. Was that what she'd wanted?

To live her entire life out a second time?

All the pieces had been there.

Her captain - _a shell, stripped of everything but his strength, was that all he ever was?_

Darius - _axe, oiled and bright, unused._

Katarina…

Riven's gut twisted, a sharp pain. A physical pain, from the medic's work. It was a welcome distraction.

Riven's eyes were still closed when she heard the door of the room open and heavy footsteps. She opened her eyes. Darius had come. He was wearing his formal black uniform with its red trim and gold accents. He glanced at her, but didn't address her. Instead, he nodded to the medic. "How is she?"

Slowly, the medic withdrew his hands and the aura about them faded. "She's not to fight anything for at least two days," he said.

"You're done then?" Darius asked.

"Until one of you savages puts more holes in her, yes," the medic snapped.

Darius' face twisted. He was trying not to glower. "Thank you for your service," he said. "Dismissed."

The medic didn't salute. Instead, he nodded. "Sir," he said.

Darius stepped aside to let the significantly smaller man walk out of the room without having to step around him. Despite being a general, Darius was still a soldier.

When the medic had gone, Darius shut the door behind him. Without speaking, he walked to a corner of the room to fetch a chair, then brought the chair over next to Riven's cot. He sat down. The chair was small for him and creaked beneath his weight.

"Sir," Riven greeted. She knew she ought to be afraid, anxious, something – she was facing her superior officer after a failure. But she was too tired.

"Riven," Darius replied. He shifted to place his elbows on his knees and rest his weight on them. "You spoke with Katarina," he said, going straight to the point.

It hadn't been a question, so Riven didn't answer.

"How was she?" Darius asked.

Riven thought of her own self, burning once, a long time ago, then burning down to cinders. She'd gone to the Du Couteau house with her cinders and she'd drowned in Katarina, so much Katarina, til her cinders were cold ash. She was so tired. She was so tired of dealing with, thinking about, letting her life revolve around Katarina.

Eventually, Riven uttered a single word in answer. "Angry."

Darius nodded. "I see," he said.

Riven studied his face. Wrinkles cut his sun-dark skin and the stubble on his chin was coming in salt-and-pepper, black and silver. Did he see?

"I'm… sorry," Darius said.

Riven's brow furrowed. "Sir?"

Still leaning on his elbows, Darius clasped his enormous hands together. "Draven had a story about a training accident. I've known him his entire life. I know when he's lying."

Riven heard the accusation in Darius' tone – not accusation aimed at his brother, but at Katarina and her house. Draven's warning to Cassiopeia flickered through her memory. Riven licked her lips. Choosing her words with care, she spoke slowly and deliberately. "If Katarina wanted to kill me, I'd be dead."

"I'm not stupid," Darius rumbled. He paused, then softened his tone. "You're not dead."

To this, Riven said nothing. To affirm the obvious was to waste breath.

Darius shifted. He raised his hands, put his head in them. "Riven, how many men have died under your command?"

Riven swallowed. "In Ionia?"

Darius shook his head, still in his hands. "Ionia. Demacia. The Freljord."

"Never deployed to the Freljord," Riven said flatly. Darius didn't respond. Riven was only buying time. Faces passed through her thoughts, one at a time, fifty, fifty-one, fifty-two – had she already counted that one? How many times had she failed as a commander?

Eventually, Riven replied, "Don't know."

"Too many," Darius said.

There was a bitterness in his words. It cut, deeply. "Too many," Riven echoed. To her own ears, her voice was hollow.

Darius closed his eyes. "I used to count," he said. His voice was low and rough. "Few months after making general, I stopped. Couldn't do it anymore."

Riven shifted her gaze to the ceiling. She couldn't look at Darius. She didn't want to hear him admitting weakness. Darius, of all people, could not be weak.

The emptiness that she'd thought would be healed by returning to Noxus – it was cold in her chest.

"What would you do if one of those men, just one, any one – if one of those men came back from the dead? If he walked out of death and your ways crossed again?" Darius asked.

To this, Riven lacked an answer. And so she said nothing.

"What do you want, Riven?" Darius asked.

It was the same question that Katarina had asked, but the answer Riven had given to Katarina wasn't… correct. "I don't know," Riven said. She turned her head back towards Darius. He hadn't moved since she'd looked away. His eyes were still closed.

Darius didn't say anything in reply.

Riven's answer, she knew, had not been satisfactory.

But she didn't have a better answer.

"What I want – can't have it," Riven attempted.

Darius opened his eyes. He reached out and took a bit of the bedsheet and rubbed it between his fingers. "Strength needs purpose," he said. "Even if the purpose is just to fight and die." Darius let the sheet slip from his fingers. "Do you want to command the Crimson Elite?" he asked.

Like the rest of Darius' questions, this one lacked an easy answer.

Perhaps that was why Darius spoke again – to give her time. "I pushed you into it," he said. "Like I ordered you to go to Katarina. Like I sent you to Ionia." He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. He looked at the foot of Riven's bed instead of at Riven.

Riven too fixed her gaze on the foot of her bed.

It was a standard Noxian military bunk, but only the lower half. The wood bedposts had holes drilled into them to allow for pegs to connect an upper bunk. The white sheet was tucked under the mattress tightly, as per regulations.

"I wanted to go to Ionia," Riven said. "I don't know if I want the Crimson Elite."

"And Katarina?" Darius prompted.

"Don't know either," Riven answered.

Darius shifted, looked at Riven again. "Got a room for you in our house, for as long as you want it," he said. "I'll handle the Crimson Elite - was going to do it anyway, before I heard you were alive. It'll be yours if you decide you want it."

Darius' words – Riven heard them but couldn't make sense of them. Was she being stripped of her rank or not? "Sir?"

Darius shrugged. "I'm the Hand of Noxus," he said. "I do what I want." He stood. "Figure yourself out, Commander. Now get up."

Without waiting for Riven to rise, Darius lumbered to the door and opened it. To someone beyond, he growled, "You. Give me your shirt."

Across the room from him, Riven began the process of pushing herself up into a sitting position. Her stomach felt healed. It would be embarrassing, though, to reopen anything a second time. By the time she'd swung her legs around and was sitting on the edge of the bed, Darius had returned, holding a runner's brown uniform jacket, which he thrust out at her.

Riven took the jacket and put it on. The fabric was course and it itched. The infirmary was warm enough that she'd forgotten she wasn't wearing a top. Darius hadn't said anything about it either, hadn't given any indication of noticing. He'd always been an odd man in that regard, but Darius was strong and thus his preferences, or lack of them, were his own business and no one else's.

When Riven was dressed and standing, sword tucked into her belt as if it were a knife, Darius jerked his head to indicate the door and grunted.

Wordlessly, Riven fell in behind him as he lead them both out of the infirmary and then through the halls of High Command.

The same, she thought Darius might say, as strength without purpose.

So he would return a command to her when she'd found purpose?

If her intent was to have command, was her purpose then to find purpose?

Following in Darius' wake, Riven shook her head. It was too much. It was all too much. For so long, all she'd wanted was to return to Noxus. And now - she wasn't content with what she had but she didn't know what more she wanted.

But why did it matter so what she wanted?

Riven was a soldier. She marched. She fought. She didn't _want_. She wasn't meant to think in circles. She was meant to _do_.

The infirmary she'd been in was located on one of the higher floors of the building and it didn't take them very long to reach the main entry hall of the compound.

Draven was sprawled out on a stone bench along the wall, sitting with both his arms draped over the back of the bench and his legs wide. There was a large stain of dried blood on his yellow shirt. From what Riven remembered before collapsing in the street, she guessed that it was her blood.

Draven waved to them. "Hey bro," he called. "Looking for Draven?"

Darius came to a stop, some distance away from Draven, crossed his arms, and stared his brother down.

On the bench, Draven rolled his eyes dramatically. Slowly, to drive home that he was only doing it because he wanted to, not because of the silent order, he rose and strolled over to Darius and Riven. When he got to them, he gave an exaggerated bow. "Your delightful majesty, may I present, Draaav-

"Draven, take Riven to our house," Darius said, ignoring his brother's antics. "She's staying in the guest room."

Draven straightened and tilted his head to the side. "Hey," he said, "What?"

Darius loomed. Even as he aged, he was bigger and more imposing than his younger brother. "Is Draven hard of hearing?" he asked.

The best comparison for Draven's reaction was _offended cat_. He arched back. "Of course not, Draven's perfect in every way," he said. "Just don't get what you're after."

Darius didn't stop looming. "Do you have a problem?" he asked.

Draven shrugged as he took a small step back and shifted his attention from Darius to Riven. "Nah bro," he said. "Just questions."

"I'm busy," Darius replied. "We can talk at dinner tonight. About how you lied to me. Do what you're told."

Draven made a rude noise. "Yeah, sure, whatever," he said. He turned on his heel to face the door and made an extravagant _follow_ gesture. "Come on Riven."

Now it was Riven's turn to glower. She didn't take orders from Draven. She turned to Darius. "Sir?"

"Go with him. Dismissed, commander," Darius rumbled.

Satisfied that she was following Darius and not his brother, Riven turned to follow the obnoxiously dressed man out of High Command.

As soon as they'd crossed the threshold from the hall into the main courtyard of the compound, Draven puffed himself up and deepened his voice. "We can talk at dinner," he parroted before sliding back into his normal tone. "Scuzzbucket never leaves his office. Hasn't been home for dinner in a week."

Riven didn't reply. That Darius was the sort to never leave his work was hardly surprising. That he didn't eat dinner often with his flamboyant brother – even less so.

Draven took them through the front gate of command and then onto one of the side streets headed down the mountain. "So did the crazy bitch stab you a second time or something?"

Riven bit down on a half-formed snarl.

"Hey, calm, calm," Draven said. "I'm just saying – I go over there a lot too. And just between you and Draven, that family's got issues."

There was little Riven could truthfully say against this.

Even though Riven was silent, or, because Riven was silent, Draven continued the conversation. "Katarina lost it when you were murdered, you know," Draven said. "Thought she was going to burn High Command down. Or do like my bro did to some of the guys upstairs. Her dad kicked her out of the building, for, like, a month or two."

Riven frowned. This was the third version of events she'd heard. It was also the most detailed and possibly the most honest. Loathe as she was to engage with Draven, or to spend even more of her life contemplating Katarina, she found her voice. "Then what?"

As he walked, Draven did a sort of skip with a fist pump. "Knew you'd bite," he said. "Draven's a people person genius."

The scowl on Riven's face would have made Katarina proud. Draven was not a people person genius and she did not appreciate being used to further his delusions.

"Yeah, so, her old man wanted her to chill and he sent her to Ionia to do some kind of shady business. When she got back – that was right after…"

Draven faltered.

Riven waited.

"She got back right after Cassie sorta…" Draven made a vague gesture that might have been reminiscent of a snake slithering. "Katarina told High Command she quit. Her dad was furious, wouldn't let her, sent her out of the city again. And then her dad disappeared – you hear about that, all the way out in whatever hole you were hiding in?"

Riven nodded before realizing that she was walking a half step behind and to the side of Draven. He couldn't see face. "Yes," she said.

"When she came back Swain was the new head honcho and then she finally quit for real," Draven said. "Her and her brother and sister have been hiding out in their mansion ever since."

Riven's response was measured. "That… would have been useful to know before."

Draven shrugged. "Yeah, bet Darius didn't tell you. Unlike Draven, the bro's not a people person genius. Bet he thought you'd walk through the front door and just fall into each other's arms… Infantry, you know?" Draven said. "Not the sharpest blades in the armory."

"And you are," Riven said, as blandly as she could manage.

"Of course Draven is," Draven boasted. As he said this, he swung his arms out and threw out his chest, a self-promoting caricature of himself. But then Draven hesitated and drew himself back to his normal stance. "Or maybe second sharpest," he conceded. "Cassie's probably the sharpest."

Riven's eyebrows shot up. She had never heard Draven ever allow that anyone had the possibility of being better than Draven at anything. "You like her," she said.

"What's it to you?" Draven bristled. "Draven loves all his adoring fans."

Riven hummed an acknowledgement.

They'd gone down the mountain a decent distance now. The mansions of the old nobility were behind them but they hadn't descended so far that they'd reached the poorer section of the city. Draven stopped at a large house. It was made of wood, painted dark red, and had a couple windows. It was a wealthy home, but not extravagant.

"Here we are," Draven announced. "Home sweet home."

Riven followed him up the front steps and through the front door into a house that was furnished only marginally better than a barracks. The front room had a bench with a low table in front of it, both made of bare wood and placed in a corner as if someone had told Darius that a house needed to have seating and a table. The walls were unpainted plaster with no decorations to speak of, save for an enormous picture of Draven's face.

Riven chose not to comment.

Draven commented instead. "Do you like the Draven?" he asked, gesturing at the portrait.

As diplomatically as possible, Riven replied, "It's very… Draven."

"Yeah, yeah," Draven said. "I can tell you love it."

He sounded startlingly sincere.

Riven kept her face perfectly neutral. There was no other appropriate response.

"Come on, guest room's this way," Draven said. He took them up a flight of stairs, down a hall as bare as the rest of the house, past a door painted bright yellow – Draven's room, he said with pride, and to room that was literally empty except for a full top and bottom military bunk. "If you need anything," Draven announced, "I'm sure you can figure it out. Draven's headed out to go meet and greet his fans."

In way of answer, Riven nodded. True to his word, Draven turned and sauntered back down the hall and down the stairs. He was still wearing the shirt with Riven's blood on it, but she wasn't inclined to point that out to him.

Instead, Riven walked over to the bottom bunk in the guest room, lay down, and immediately fell into a deep sleep.

She didn't wake until someone shook her.

Acting on instinct, Riven's eyes flew open and she reached for her sword at her side, but a hand gripping tight on her wrist stopped her.

"Stand down," Darius rumbled. "You heard the medic."

Riven blinked her eyes rapidly, clearing sleep from them. Following Darius' order, she relaxed and he let go.

Darius was standing next to the bunk – he'd be leaning over her were it not for the upper bunk above her, which he was propping himself up against with one arm. "I got food," he said. He pushed himself off from the bedframe. "Come on."

"Yes sir," Riven said automatically. She rolled out of the bunk she'd been resting in and stood. Everything felt stiff.

"Draven won't be joining us," Darius said as he lumbered for the door. "He didn't think I'd come home with dinner, stuffed his face at some eatery on the way back from whatever it is he does all day."

"Adoring fans, sir," Riven said.

"Right," replied Darius. He led them down to the first floor and into what must have served the house as a dining room. There was an unfinished pine table with benches. It looked like the same sort of table Riven grew up eating at in the barracks dining hall – it probably was the same sort of table. The room was lit by a few hextech lamps hanging from hooks in the ceiling.

On the table was a platter heaped with pork sausages and bread rolls.

Darius pointed to one of the benches. "Sit," he said.

Riven sat.

Darius went into an adjacent room, then returned soon with a pair of cups and a pitcher of beer. He put the cups and pitcher on the table, then sat down across from Riven. "Eat."

"Yes sir," Riven mumbled. She was already reaching for a bread roll to stuff a sausage into.

She ate like she was famished.

She was famished – when was the last time she'd eaten?

And when was the last time she'd eaten good Noxian street food?

There'd been a cart selling sausages and bread rolls at the docks when she'd first returned to Noxus. She hadn't eaten any then because she lacked for money. And then she'd gone back to the barracks and food, though it was always hardtack, salted beef, and something wilted, had been given to her. No reason to buy food when it was provided in the barracks.

The beer that Darius had brought was mostly water. It had just enough beer in it that Riven felt safe drinking it. Water in much of Noxus proper wasn't clean.

Riven and Darius ate and drank in silence.

And they ate everything.

When there was only a single sausage left, Riven eyed it, and then eyed Darius. He saw her looking at him and shrugged before pushing the mostly empty platter towards her.

Riven didn't need any further prompting. A suggestion from a superior was, after all, an order. She polished off the last sausage.

"Huh," Darius said. "Glad Draven already ate. Didn't realize I was that hungry."

Riven didn't respond. She wasn't sure what sort of response was appropriate.

A silence descended during which neither Riven nor Darius looked at the other.

Eventually, Darius stood. He wiped his hands on his pants, then swept up the dirty dishes and carried them off into the room he'd gotten the beer from. Judging from the clatter, audible in the dining room, he dropped them into a bucket to be washed later.

All the while, Riven continued to sit at her bench. She hadn't been dismissed yet.

When Darius returned, he cleared his throat before speaking. "You are welcome to stay here until you decide to go elsewhere," he said. "I don't have time for dinner most nights. If you need something, you know where my office is."

"Yes sir," Riven said. Everything about the situation was surreal. It was only then sinking in that she was boarding in the house of the Hand of Noxus.

Darius cleared his throat again. He nodded. "Right," he said. "Turn out the lights when you go. Good night."

Having said his part, Darius turned and walked out of the room.

Assuming that was dismissal, Riven stood. It took her a few moments to figure out how to turn out the hextech lamps, but once she understood the switch mechanism, she quickly shut them all off.

The exhaustion she'd felt before hadn't been much abated by her nap and the large meal wasn't helping.

Bone-weary, Riven took herself back up the stairs of the house, back to the guest room, and back to bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [note copy/pasted from the one i wrote for ff.net because i'm lazy]
> 
> So sometimes I think that I totally know what the game plan is for this fic and then I start writing and chapters like this one happen and I don't even. I think what happened is that I got super invested in the versions of Riven and Katarina that I wrote for my angst-free oneshot the other week and then started trying to import them into this fic and then I bent over backwards to construct a plot wherein I could end up with those versions of the characters at a later date. IDK. Character interpretation variation is a weird thing. It's like the Chevron standard but for people - the canon is ambiguous and so we have a range of reasonable interpretations and no best one and the agency is allowed to interpret except we have many agencies now, up until Congress passes a new statute - sorry, law school moment (I'm just sorta really super upset about the lore direction these days. Sometimes I think that when they get around to reworking Noxus, that'll probably be when I stop writing for this fandom. Lol. A long time ago when they got rid of the Institute I said in an A/N that I thought that was a good thing and a reviewer showed up and disagreed with me and - wow - that reviewer was so right and I was so wrong)
> 
> Thank you to Krisslona (whose fondness for italics is rubbing off on me) and to Balabalabagan for beta reading! And thank you also to all of you who are still reading this after all these years!


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